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conformity  ovec  les  conditions  du  contrat  de 
filmage. 

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derniire  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impression  ou  d'illustkation,  soit  par  le  second 
p'at,  selon  le  cas.  Tous  les  autres  exemplaires 
originaux  sont  filmfo  en  commenpant  par  la 
premiere  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impression  ou  d'illustr&rion  et  en  terminant  pa^- 
la  dernidi^e  page  qui  comporte  une  telle 
empreinte. 

Un  des  symboles  suivants  apparattra  sur  la 
dernidre  image  de  chat^ue  microfiche,  selon  le 
cas:  le  symbols  — ^  signifie  "A  SUIVRE",  le 
symbols  V  signifie  "FIN". 

Les  cartes,  planches,  tableaux,  etc.,  peuvent  Atre 
filmis  A  des  faux  de  reduction  diff6rents. 
Lorsque  le  document  est  trop  grand  pour  dtre 
reproduit  en  un  seul  cliche,  11  est  film6  it  partir 
de  I'angle  supirieur  gauche,  de  gauche  d  droite, 
at  de  haut  en  bas.  en  prenant  le  nombre 
d'images  n^cessaire.  Les  dJagrammes  suivants 
illustrent  la  m^thode. 


1 

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HEG 


SUB] 


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't* 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


BY 


JOHN  ANGUS  Mac  VANNEL,  A.M. 


SUBMITTED   IN  PARTIAL   FULFILMENT  OF  THE   REQUIREMENTS 

FOR   THE  DEGREE   OF  DOCTOR   OF   PHILOSOPHY 

IN  THE 

Faculty  of   Philosophy 
Columbia  University 


NKW  YORK 
N^lAv,  1S96 


r    IS'    r 


In  t 
an  out 
Hegel 
ideal  is 
the  sil( 
the  wo 
concret 
spiritua 
I  wis 


Columl 


PRKKACK 


In  the  following  brief  essay  I  have  endeavoured  to  give 
an  outline  of  Hegel's  doctrine  of  the  will.  Human  life  for 
Hegel  is  one,  and  the  will  is  simply  the  man.  Life's  highest 
ideal  is  not  achieved  by  the  one  who  "cares  but  to  pass  into 
the  silent  life,"  but  by  such  as  live  well  the  every-day  life  of 
the  world;  who  see  treasured  up  in  the  various  relations  of 
concrete  social  life— the  family,  the  state,  the  church— the 
spiritual  experience  of  the  human  race. 

I  wish  to  inscribe  this  essay  to  my  father  and  mother. 

John  Angus  Mac  Vannel. 

Columbia  University,  May,  i8g6. 

(V) 


§ 
§ 
§ 
§ 


§  1 
§1 
§  1 
§  I 
§  I 
§  I 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 

§    I.    The  conception  of  evolution u 

§    2.    The  spiritual  ebb  and  flow  in  philosophy i, 

§    3.    The  system  of  Hegel j. 

§    4.    The  absolute  idea g 

§    5-    The  idea  of  development  in  Hegel's  philosophy   ...  17 

§    6.     Moral  institutions jg 

§    7.    The  will  as  realized  in  institutional  life 19 

§    8.    The  subject  of  this  essay 20 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   PROBLEM   OF  HEGEL 

§    9.    Introduction 2 

§  10.    The  results  of  Greek  philosophy 23 

§  II.    The  middle  ages 2c 

§  12.     Descartes,  Malebranche,  Spinoza 25 

§  13.    Transition ;  Leibnitz,  Hume 28 

§  14.     Kant,  Fichte,  Schelling 29 

§  15.    The  problem  of  Hegel -e 

(vii) 


\     I 


vni 


CONTENTS 


§  i6.     Logic g 

§  17.    Nature 

to 

§  18.    Mind 

40 

CHAPTER  III 

CONSCIOUSNESS 

§  19.     Evolution  and  consciousness .^ 

§  20.    The  physical  process ^^ 

§  21.    The  evolution  by  antagonism  of  one  spiritual  principle.  45 


CHAPTER  IV 

SUBJECTIVE  MIND 

§  22.  Subjective  Mind  (psychology) g 

§  23.  Anthropology 

§  24.  Phenomenology  of  mind 

§  25.  Psychology 


CHAPTER  V 
THE   FREEDOM   OF  MAN 

§  26.     The  unity  and  continuity  of  mind ^g 

§  27.    Intelligence  and  will  .    . 

56 

§  28.  The  will  and  self-realization g 

§  29.  The  individual  and  the  universal g 

§  30.  The  social  organism 

§  31.  The  ethical  development  from  Kant  to  Hegel   ....      65 

§  32-  From  abstract  to  concrete  moraHty g- 


h 


COA'TENTS 


rAOB 

39 
40 


§33-     (0  I^egality,  (2)  Morality,  (3)  The  ethical  life    . 


ix 

fAOB 
70 


CHAPTER  VI 

LAW — ABSTRACT   RIGHT 

§34.     The  province  of  law  or  right 71 

§35.     Hegel's  conception  of  "natural  rights" 71 

§  36.     Personality  the  foundation  of  rights  and  duties  ....  72 

§37.     The  right  of  property y^ 

§  38.     Hegel's  conception  of  property 78 

§  39.     Contract yo 

§  40.     Hegel's  theory  of  punishment Si 

§  41.    The  legal  and  the  moral 82 


48 
SO 

53 
54 


56 
56 
58 
60 
62 

65 
67 


CHAPTER  Vn 

THE  MORALITY   OF  CONSCIENCE 

§  42.     Morality  as  obedience  to  external  law  .  , 83 

§  43'     Hegel's  conception  of  motive 84 

§  44.     The  good  and  conscience 85 

§  45.     Conscience  and  environment 87 

§  46.     The  ethical  life 88 


CHAPTER  Vni 
THE   ETHICAL   LIFE 

§  47.     The  social  life 89 

§  48.     The  higher  individualism go 


■I 


V  I 


ii 


X  CONTEXTS 

rAOB 

§  49.  The  ethical  world o^ 

§  50.  The  family 

§51.  The  civic  community o- 

§  5  2.  The  state 5 

§53.  Brief  summary  and  conclusion 55 


i! 


rAOB 

9a 
92 

95 

96 

99 


CHAPTER  I 


INTRODUCTION 


§  J.  The  intellectual  and  spiritual  vitality  of  every  age,  as 
well  as  of  every  individual,  is  due  to  the  dominating  and 
fructifying  influence  of  some  one  comprehensive  idea.     The 
present  age  owes  the  greater  portion  of  its  mental  life  to  the 
principle  of  evolution;   an  idea  which  hss  become  the  very 
atmosphere  of  all  enquiry  in  the  domain  of  art,  of  science 
and  of  religion.     In  the  popular  consciousness  it  is  accepted 
without  dissent  that  the  principle  first  appeared  in  its  appli- 
cation by  Darwin  to  the  facts  of  biology,  and  that  its  exten- 
sion to  the  sphere  of  mental  life  was  an  after-thought.     As  a 
matter  of  fact,  however,  the  systematic  and  more  pregnant 
application  of  the  principle  in  the  domain  of  history,  of  art, 
of  philosophy,  and   of  religion  had   been   made  by   He^cl 
almost  half  a  century  before  the  time  of  Darwin ;   and  even 
Hegel   cannot   lay  claim   to   its  discovery.     Evolution   and 
Darwinism  are  far  from  being  convertible  terms.     As  is  true 
of  all  great  ideas,  evolution  has  been  in  the  world  from  the 
first  beginnings  of  thought.     Traces  of  it  are  to  be  found  in 
early  Greek  philosophy  and   in  many  of  the  heathen  my- 
thologies.    The  conception  in  its  present  fulness  has  been 
slowly  evolved  in  the  environment  of  the  advancing  human 
knowledge  of  twenty-four  centuries.     It  is  no  longer  a  theory 
merely;   it  has   become  a  creed :   and   it  now  lends  such   1 
living  interest  to  the   past  development  of  all   organisms 
institutions,  and   creeds,  that  it  is  a  difficult  matter  to  ade- 
quately appreciate  the  standpoint  of  those  who  were  without 
»97]  II 


% 


12 


I/EGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE   WILL 


[I9» 


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J   i 


the  idea.  No  longc"  can  the  saying  of  Goethe  be  accepted 
without  reservation  that  "  the  history  of  the  past  is  a  book 
with  seven  seals." 

It  is  this  conception  of  development  that  has  caused  the 
history  of  philosophy  to  be  regarded  as  a  part  of  philosophy 
itself.  A  more  sympathetic  appreciation  is  gradually  com- 
ing to  s("  "n  the  different  systems  which  history  presents,  the 
progressive  effort  on  the  part  of  the  human  spirit  to  reach  a 
more  adequate  conception  of  the  world  as  rational.  An 
earnest  study  of  these  systems  but  strengthens  our  faith  in 
the  spiritual  nature  and  ultimate  destiny  of  man.  "The 
refutation  of  a  system,"  says  Hegel,  "  only  means  that  its 
limits  are  passed,  and  that  the  fixed  principle  in  it  has  been 
reduced  to  an  organic  element  in  the  completer  system  that 
follows.  Thus,  the  history  of  philosophy  in  its  true  mean- 
ing deals  not  with  the  past,  but  with  the  eternal  and  veritable 
present :  and  in  its  results  resembles  not  a  museum  of  the 
aberrations  of  the  human  intellect,  but  a  pantheon  of  God- 
like figures  representing  various  stages  of  the  immanent 
logic  of  all  hitman  thought."' 

§  2.  In  philosophy  as  in  religion  there  has  been  the  spir- 
itual ebb  and  flow;  but  with  each  return  of  the  tide  there 
has  been  advance.  "  Biologically  considered,"  says  Prof. 
James,  "  man's  life  consists  for  the  most  part  in  adjustments 
that  arc  unscientific,  and  deals  with  probabilities  and  not 
with  certainties."  In  the  development  of  philosophy  the 
case  is  very  similar.  Many  who  have  essayed  a  system  of 
philosophy  never  reached  the  high  level  of  thought  neces- 
sary to  express  adequately  the  essential,  informing  spirit  of 
their  time.  For  the  fullest  expression  of  the  spiritual  life  of 
England — in  that  she  was  forced  to  find  her  metaphysics 
somewhere — we  must  go  not  to  her  philosophy  but  to  her 

1  IVerke,  VI,  §  86,  Quoted  by  Sterrett,  Studies  in  IlegtPs  Philosophy  of  Re- 
ligion, p.  15. 


199] 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE   WILL 


13 


poetry.  Twice  only  in  the  history  of  Western  thought  has 
philosophy  reached  the  high-tide :  first,  in  the  embodiment 
by  Socrates,  Plato  and  Aristotle  of  the  essential  truth  in  the 
rich  and  complex  life  of  the  period  in  which  they  lived ;  and 
second,  the  modern  development  in  Germany  which  sprang 
up  within  the  bosom  of  Christian  education,  begun  by  Kant, 
and  which  was  carried  to  its  completion,  and  therein  its  most 
adequate  expression,  by  Hegel.  The  outcome  of  both  de- 
velopments gives  us  a  deeper  faith  in  the  essential  rationality 
of  the  actual  world,  and  more  clearly  emphasizes  the  primacy 
of  thought.  "  What  is  the  absolute  nature  of  man's  conscious 
experience,  intellectual  and  moral  ?"  is  the  question  for 
which  both  sought  an  explanation — as  it  ij.  the  question  of 
all  philosophy.  Both  maintain  that  the  only  principle  of 
explanation  is  that  of  self-consciousness.  In  other  words, 
that  the  absolute  nature  o:  all  reality  is  spiritual.  The 
second,  however,  did  more  than  merely  reaffirm  the  truth 
maintained  by  the  first.  It  furnished  a  new  ai.d  fuller 
demonstration,  rendered  possible  by  reason  of  an  enriched 
experience — of  those  threshings  which  the  soul  of  man  was 
forced  to  undergo  through  centuries  of  struggle  in  its  ad- 
vance to  higher  issues. 

§  3.  Prof.  Huxley  claimed  for  Descartes'  system  the  dis- 
tinction of  being  the  final  philosophy;  and  others  have 
claimed  ^he  same  for  the  systems  of  Spinoza,  Leibnitz  and 
Hegel.  As  Prof.  James  says,  we  need  to  be  ever  reminded 
afresh  that  no  philosophy  can  ever  be  more  than  an  hypoth- 
esis. It  is  a  slavish  submission  to  the  letter  of  any  doctrine 
or  system  that  kills.  Life  is  widening;  it  is  becoming  a 
fuller  and  a  richer  thing,  and  human  experience  will  ever 
prove  too  strong  for  any  system.  Nor  was  Hegel  one  who 
would  expect,  much  less  who  would  crave  our  indulgence. 
Doubtless,  as  Prof.  Green  once  said  of  the  systcTn,  "  it  will 
all  have  to  be  done  over  again."     Nevertheless,  so  compre- 


M 


HEGELS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[200 


I ' 


hensive  a  system  as  that  of  Hegel,  however  we  regard  it  as 
an  achievement,  was  at  least  splendid  as  an  endeavor ;  and 
the  due  meed  of  which  is  our  grateful  admiration.  Condi- 
tioned as  it  was  by  the  thought  of  the  preceding  twenty-four 
centuries,  it  is  fair  to  regard  the  system  as  the  summing  up 
and  most  perfect  expression  of  the  German  development  of 
philosophy. 

The  system  has  been  designated  "pantheistic"  times  with- 
out number.  The  truth  or  untruth  of  such  a  charge  can  be 
ascertained  only  by  a  sympathetic  and  earnest  study  of  the 
system  at  first  hand.  There  is  one  charge  in  particular, 
however,  of  which  Hegel  has  been  and  still  continues  to  be 
accused.  It  is  the  pre\  ailing  belief  that  he  is  simply  an 
a  priori  metaphysician,  who  spins  theories  oat  of  his  head  al- 
together regardless  of  the  facts  of  experience.  In  his  intro- 
duction to  the  Logik,  Hegel  states  the  connection  which  his 
philosophy  bears,  and  of  necessity  bears,  to  experience.  "  It 
does  not  in  the  least  neglect  the  empirical  facts  contained  in 
the  several  sciences,  but  recognizes  and  adopts  them ;  it  ap- 
preciates and  applies  towards  its  own  structure  the  universal 
element  in  these  sciences,  their  laws  and  classifications ;  but 
besides  all  this,  into  the  categories  of  science  it  introduces, 
and  gives  currency  to  other  categories  "*  Again:  "Thought 
is  only  true  in  proportion  as  it  sinks  itself  in  the  facts. "3  It 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  neither  in  his  premises  nor  in  his 
conclusions  does  Hegel  go  beyond  experience.  In  the  his- 
tory of  philosophy  it  would  be  difficult  ;;o  find  a  more  prac- 
tical and  sober-minded  philosopher  than  Hegel ;  and  it  is 
this  that  gives  to  his  system  its  greatest  recommendation. 
For  idealism  as  it  is  ordinarily  understood  Hegel  could  have 
no  sympathy  whatever.  He  was  an  idealist;  but  not  in  the 
sense  of  reducing  the  world  to  the  mere  ideas  of  an  individ- 

'^JVerke  VI.  §  9.    Translated  by  William  Wallace,  ;!nd  ed.    Oxford,  1S92. 
»/5?V.,  §23. 


I 


20 1  ]  JiEG ELS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  15 

ual.  Philosophy  must  include  every  phase  of  the  actual 
world.  Reality  is  one,  and  Reason  knows  itself  as  the 
essence  of  Reality.  "  The  rational  is  the  real,  and  the  real  is 
the  ratioral."  This  is  the  contention  of  Hogel.  But  by  no 
efifort  of  pure  thought  or  reasoning  in  vacuo  does  he  attempt  / 
to  discern  the  rational.  The  task  of  philosophy,  as  Hegel 
conceived  it,  is  to  trace  in  nature,  in  the  human  mind,  in 
social  institutions,  in  history,  and  in  religion,  an  immanent  / 
Reason.  "  In  thine  own  soul  build  it  up  again,"  sings  the 
Chorus  in  Faust.  Hegel  starts  from  the  assumption — the 
assumption,  it  may  be  said,  of  all  the  sciences — that  exist- 
ence is  one,  and  intelligence  is  one,  and  that  the  "  unpreju- 
diced and  whole-hearted"  mind  of  man  can  know  reality. 
And  it  can  do  this  simply  because,  as  a  spiritual  being,  man 
"  is  more  than  individual,  because  the  universal  nature  that 
is  in  him  can  break  through  the  isolation  of  a  merely  indi- 
vidual existence,  and  go  forth  to  find  itself — the  objective  re- 
flex of  its  own  being — in  that  universal  th^  ught  and  reason 
which  moves  and  lives  in  nature,  in  the  infinitely  diversified 
interests  of  human  life,  and  in  the  progressive  history  of 
the  race."  ♦ 

The  whole  aim  of  the  Logic,  as  Prof.  Watson  has  well 
said,  "  is  to  show  that  thought  is  competent  to  grasp  '  being* 
in  its  inmost  nature,  and  that  we  have  only  to  state  explic- 
itly what  thought  actually  thinks,  to  be  convinced  beyond 
the  possibility  of  doubt,  that  we  actually  think  '  being'  as  it 
is,  and  not  any  distorted  appearance  of  it.  No  thinker  has 
ever   insisted   with   the   same  earnestness  of   conviction  as 

*  Principal  Caird,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  300.  So  Hegel :  "  There  can- 
not be  a  Divine  Reason  and  a  human,  there  cannot  be  a  Divine  Spirit  and  a 
human,  which  are  absolutely  different.  Human  reason — the  consciousness  of 
one's  being — is  indeed  reason;  it  is  the  divine  in  man,  and  Spirit,  in  so  far  as  it 
is  the  Spirit  of  God,  is  not  a  spirit  beyond  the  stars.  On  the  contrary,  God  is 
present,  omnipresent,  and  exists  as  Spirit  in  all  spirits."  Philosophy  of  Religion 
(Eng.  Trans.  Speirs  and  Sanderson,  p.  t,^. 


^  1 


% 


i6 


HECF.nS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


ft 


!  1 


[202 


Hegel  that  the  world  we  know  is  the  only  real  world.  This 
conviction  is  bound  up  with  his  whole  conception  of  reality; 
for  he  believed  and  regarded  it  as  the  special  task  of  philoso- 
phy to  demonstrate,  that  in  the  world  as  it  actually  is — the 
world  of  nature  and  the  distinctively  human  world  of  society, 
art  and  religion — reason  is  at  work,  and  hence  that  the  task 
of  philosophy  is  to  show  that  '  what  is  real  is  rational,'  the 
spiritual  world  is  the  natural  world  contemplated  as  it  really 
is."5 

§  4.  It  was  Parmenides  who  first  among  the  Greeks  as- 
serted the  identity  of  thought  and  being.  For  Aristotle,  the 
universe  has  its  principle  or  life  in  God,  who  is  immanent  in 
and  yet  transcends  all  things.     In  Aristotle's  own  words, 

God,  v6^atg  T/ Kad' avr^,    or   hipyeia  ^  naO' avT^v,  i.  6.,  He   is  Sclf-COn- 

scious  Reason.  Such  is  also  the  "  Idea"  of  Hegel.  Herbert 
Spencer,  in  one  of  the  concluding  sections  of  his  Soci- 
ology makes  a  noteworthy  and  often-quoted  remark: 
"  Consequently,"  he  says,  "  the  final  outcome  of  that  specu- 
lation commenced  by  the  primitive  man  is  that  the  Power 
manifested  throughout  the  universe  distinguished  as  material, 
is  the  same  Power  which  in  ourselves  wells  up  under  the 
form  of  consciousness.*  Aristotle  and  Hegel  could  both 
assent  to  this ;  but  they  would  go  further.  It  was  their  en- 
deavour to  show  that  what  we  regard  as  the  corporeal  world 
is  the  manifestation  of  the  same  reality  whose  nature  is  most 
adequately  revealed  in  the  mental  world — in  self-conscious- 
ness : — in  other  words,  that  nature  and  spirit  are  stages  in 
the  evolution  of  one  life  which  remains  identical  with  itself 
through  all  its  changes.  There  is  for  Hegel  an  immanent 
and  universal  reason  through  all  the  life  of  the  external  world 
and  in  the  intellectual  and  moral  life  of  man.  Thus  to  the 
notion  of  the  Absolute  Hegel  gave  a  new  significance.     For 

*  Philosophical  Review,  vol.  iii.,  art.  "  The  Problem  of  Hegel."  p.  548. 
•§659. 


[202 

d.    This 

reality ; 

philoso- 

T  is — the 

society, 

the  task 

)nal,'  the 

it  really 

eeks  as- 
totle,  the 
lanen.t  in 
n  words, 
self-con- 
Herbert 
his   Soci- 
remark : 
,t  specu- 
e  Power 
material, 
nder  the 
Id   both 
heir  en- 
al  world 
is  most 
nscious- 
tages  in 
ith  itself 
manent 
al  world 
s  to  the 
For 


203]  HEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  17 

him  the  Absolute  is  not  a  shadowy  something  on  the  border- 
land of  dreams,  but  the  indwelling  and  informing  life  of  the 
rich  and  varied  contents  of  the  universe — the  beginning  and 
end  of  all,  "  All  that  God  is,"  he  says,  "  He  imparts  and 
reveals ;  and  He  does  so,  at  first,  in  and  through  nature."' 
Thus  the  material  world  rightly  understood  1  the  natural 
environment  for  the  life  of  spirit,  where — 

"  That  which  drew  from  out  the  boundless  deep 
Turns  again  home." 

§  5.  To  this  idealistic  conception  of  the  universe,  Hegel 
joined  the  dc  :trine  of  evolution  to  which  reference  was  made 
at  the  beginning  of  this  essay  as  the  informing  principle  in 
the  mental  life  of  the  present  century.  This  idea  of  develop- 
ment is  the  leading  conception  of  Hegel's  philosophy.  He 
was  the  first  to  clearly  perceive  that  the  most  important 
application  of  the  law  is  to  be  found  in  the  development  of 
man's  spiritual  nature.  Tennyson  makes  Ulysses  say,  "I 
am  a  part  of  all  that  I  have  met."  Man  is  really  a  part  of 
all  that  has  gone  before.  More  than  of  any  other  creature, 
it  may  be  said  of  him  that  only  in  the  light  of  his  history 
can  we  adequately  appreciate  what  he  has  become.  Con- 
scious mind,  while  it  is  the  most  independent  of  finite  exist- 
ences, is  at  the  same  time  the  most  dependent.  But  Hegel 
would  be  iii  earnest  with  the  idea  of  evolution.  For  him 
as  for  Aristotle  the  full  nature  of  any  reality  is  revealed 
only  in  the  totality  of  its  development,  and  only  when  its 
end  is  before  us  can  Reality  be  completely  characterized. 
"  We  can  only  understand  the  amoeba  and  the  polype  by  a 
light  reflected  from  the  study  of  man."  ^  Yet  a  very  great 
part  of  current  evolutionism  exhausts  itself  in  merely  tabu- 
lating the  phenomenal  phases  of  reality,  with  no  attempt  at 

'  Wtrke  VI.  §  140  (The  Logic  of  Hegel,  Wallace's  Translation.) 
'Lewes,  Study  oj Psychology,  p.  122. 


'\\ 


iii 


1 .  I 


i8 


HEGEnS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[204 


.  I    ! 


showing  the  vital,  essential  principle  in  the  development — 
and  thereby  losing  the  worth  of  evolution  as  a  principle  for 
the  explanation  of  reality.  Hegel  would  not  deny  the 
validity  of  the  historical  sciences.  "Yet  how,"  he  would 
ask,  "can  we  say  there  has  been  evolution  and  not  mere 
I  aimless  change  ?  "  Only  in  the  light  of  a  realized  idea  can 
we  say  that  there  has  been  such  a  thing  as  evolution.  To 
show  this  is  in  reality  the  task  ot  philosophy — to  gather  the 
partial  and  seemingly  contingent  elements  and  arrange  them 
according  to  their  realized  idea.  The  principle  of  explana- 
tion must  not  be  that  of  the  higher  by  the  lower,  but  one 
which,  while  explaining  the  lower,  is  also  adequate  for  the 
explanation  of  the  higher.  Matter,  according  to  Hegel,  far 
from  explaining  spirit,  can  itself  only  be  explained  in  terms 
of  spirit.  In  all  paths  of  human  progress  the  question  is, 
"What  has  been  evolved?"  The  higher  forms  of  religion 
cannot  be  explained  by  merely  tracing  their  development 
through  refinements  on  the  crude  superstitions  of  savages. 
Nor  is  it  an  adequate  explanation  of  society  to  find  its  basis 
in  sympathy  among  creatu.-es  of  a  like  kind.  "The  process 
of  cosmical  evolution,"  says  Laurie,  "which  is  supposed 
ultimately  to  have  culminated  in  man  (and  a  process  there 
must  have  been)  does  not  affect  the  interpretation  of  man 
as  a  distinctive  organism.  Granting  Darwinian  presump- 
tions, there  is  yet  a  point  at  which  the  imman  mt  universal 
Will  emerges  out  of  self-consciousness  and  constitutes  Man. 
It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  we  start  in  our  endeavors 
to  say  what  man  is."9  And  what  is  in  man  now  must  have 
been  in  him  potentially  from  the  first.  This  is  Hegel's  con- 
ception. 

§  6.  The  test  of  any  system  of  philosophy,  it  has  been 
said,  is  the  account  it  gives  of  the  institutions  of  civilization. 
"  What  does  it  see  in  human  history  and  the  institutions  of 

•  The  Ethics  of  Reason,  p.  189. 


[204 

)ment — 
ciple  for 
eny   the 
e  would 
ot  mere 
idea  can 
on.     To 
ither  the 
ige  them 
explana- 
,  but  one 
;e  for  the 
legel,  far 
in  terms 
estion  is, 
■  religion 
elopment 
savages, 
its  basis 
e  process 
supposed 
ess  there 
1  of  man 
jresump- 
universal 
ites  Man. 
ndeavors 
lust  have 
lel's  con- 
has  been 
'ilization. 
utions  of 


205]  HEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  V/ILL  19 

the  family,  civil  society,  the  state,  the  church?""  Uniting 
as  he  did  the  idea  of  development  with  his  idealism,  it  will 
be  at  once  apparent  what  is  Hegel's  conception  of  the  in- 
stitutional life  of  the  human  race.  In  all  existing  institutions- 
the  past  lives  on  in  the  present,  and  forms  its  central  life 
and  nucleus.  In  those  which  have  withstood  the  test  of  time, 
the  family,  the  state,  the  church,  unless  we  are  to  resign  our- 
selves to  a  thorough-going  skepticism  about  humanity,  we 
must  be  prepared  to  admit  with  Hegel  that  to  some  degree 
at  least  the  "real  is  the  rational."  Not  that  "whatever  is  is 
right;"  but  in  so  far  as  institutions  have  served  as  embodi- 
ments of  man's  needs  and  aspirations  they  are  of  ethical 
value.  Institutions  are  the  expression  of  man's  conception 
of  his  relation  to  his  environment;  the  realized  idea  of 
humanity.  The  social  organism  is  the  incarnation  of  man's 
inner  life :  virtues  are  the  subjective  habits  of  his  will,  and 
institutions  are  their  outward  embodiment :  in  other  words, 
experience  shov/s  they  are  the  conditions  under  which  man 
can  best  realize  himself.  Thus,  according  to  Hegel's  con- 
ception, they  grew  out  of  an  ethical  need — the  self-realiza- 
tion of  man.  Not  that  in  their  development  this  end  of  the 
fulfillment  of  the  capacities  of  the  human  spirit  was  always 
consciously  presented,  yet  in  the  consciousness  of  man  there 
must  have  supervened  a  universal  principle,  which,  however 
dimly,  enabled  him  to  set  himself  up  as  an  end  to  be  realized, 
and  to  present  to  his  consciousness  persons  other  than  him- 
self. It  is  this  universal  principle  of  reason  which,  in  the 
development  of  the  human  race,  has  been  the  immanent  and 
informing  life  of  all  individual  and  social  activity. 

§  7.  The  ethical  process  is  then  for  Hegel  that  for  which 

the  cosmical  process  exists.     The  conscious  soul  is  at  first 

apparently  immersed  in  nature ;   its  notion  is  that  of  a  free 

spiritual  being.     The  consciousness  of  self  implies  a  con- 

'^^'Avcta,  The  Logic  of  Hegel,  ■^.  \'j. 


I 


'v*t 


.m\  ' 


ill! 


:. 

m 
1 


;     1 


r 


20 


HEGELS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[206 


sciousness  of  not-self,  and  grows  with  it  and  by  means  of  it. 
Its  progress  is  thus  one  of  self-determination  and  self-realiza- 
tion through  environment — the  environment  of  an  intellect- 
ual and  moral  world.  "  We  think  in  relations,"  says  Her- 
bert Spencer.  The  ethical  world  is  a  world  of  relations  also. 
Nature  and  society  as  systems  of  relations  are  organic  to  the 
individual  as  intelligence  and  will  through  the  emergence  in 
him  of  the  universal  Reason.  It  is  in  this  environment  of  in- 
telligence and  of  social  institutions  that  man  is  to  find  fulfil- 
ment for  his  will  and  assert  his  freedom.  Thus  man,  by 
identifying  himself  with  the  established  laws,  virtues  and  in- 
stitutions— although  he  may  not  at  first  be  aware  of  the  im- 
port of  his  action — is  identifying  his  good  with  the  common 
good ;  and  his  rights  and  his  duties  arise  in  proportion  as  he 
becomes  identified  with  the  social  system.  In  other  words, 
Jie  becomes  a  Person,  The  child  is  first  a  member  of  the 
family  and  its  moralization  proceeds  through  the  desires  and 
inclinations  being  brought  into  conformity  with  the  duties 
and  ideals  prescribed  in  the  family  life.  "New  occasions 
teach  new  duties."  More  comprehensive  institutions,  the 
school,  civil  society,  the  state,  the  church,  render  possible 
new  ideals  through  new  relations  and  furnish  further  oppor- 
tunities for  the  expansion  of  the  individual.  The  individual 
will — his  essential  self — expands  in  the  life  of  the  people,  and 
gradually  comes  to  discover  that  established  laws  and  insti- 
tutions, far  from  being  restrictions  on  his  liberty,  are  the 
very  substance  in  which  man  becomes  human,  and  spiritual, 
and  free. 

§  8.  The  aim  of  the  present  essay  is  to  give  an  outline  of 
Hegel's  doctrine  of  the  will  as  realized  in  social  institutions. 
For  Hegel  the  will  is  the  man ;  it  has  no  other  meaning. 
And  man  is  moral  only  as  he  devotes  himself  to  the  common 
good.  For  Hegel,  as  for  T.  H.  Green,  "  There  is  no  other 
genuine  enthusiasm  for  humanity  than  one  which  has  trav- 


V^'-avjILf-MiKia-^ 


•^ 


[206 

;ans  of  it. 
;H-realiza- 

intellect- 
says  Her- 
tions  also, 
inic  to  the 
irgence  in 
nent  of  in- 
find  fulfil- 
5  man,  by 
es  and  in- 
of  the  im- 
e  common 
rtion  as  he 
her  words, 
ber  of  the 
lesires  and 
the  duties 

occasions 
itions,  the 

r  possible 
ler  oppor- 

individual 
leople,  and 

and  insti- 
,  are  the 
spiritual, 

outline  of 
istitutions. 

meaning, 
e  common 
no  other 

has  trav- 


207]  HEGEUS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  2\ 

eled  the  common  highway  of  reason — the  life  of  the  good 
neighbor  and  honest  citizen — and  can  never  forget  that  it  is 
still  only  a  further  stage  of  the  same  journey."  Since 
Hegel's  system  is  an  organic  whole  and  thus  scarcely  admits 
of  dismembering,  there  are  many  topics  connected  with  the 
subject  of  which  only  mention  or  the  merest  outline  can  be 
given  within  the  limits  to  which  this  short  essay  must  be 
confined. 

A  true  philosophy  mu'*'^  "see  life  steadily,  and  see  it 
whole" — it  must  be  one,  in  other  words,  whose  principle  is 
extensive  as  well  as  intensive  enough  to  embrace  in  its  devel- 
opment every  phase  of  existence.  That  truth  lies  in  the 
whole  is  the  very  spirit  of  Hegelianism.  The  system  gives 
one  at  least  a  feeling  for  the  complexity  of  existence  and  a 
distrust  of  the  extreme.  Yet  it  would  be  an  uninteresting 
system  indeed  that  did  not  contain  inconsistencies.  Consis- 
tency ever  tends  to  become  dogmatic,  and  hence  unfruitful  in 
its  results.  In  the  very  spirit  of  his  philosophy  Hegel  at  his 
death  might  have  said :  "  I  pass,  but  shall  not  die."  Brown- 
ing makes  David  say  to  the  dying  Saul :  "  Each  deed  thou 
hast  done  dies,  revives,  goes  to  work  in  the  world."  The 
present  generation  is  little  conscious  of  how  much  of  its  men- 
tal supplies  is  drawn  from  the  system  of  Hegel. 

One  cannot  express  just  what  in  his  mental  and  spirit- 
ual life  he  owes  to  the  teacher  he  has  once  learned  to  rever- 
ence. But  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how,  after  a  sympa- 
thetic study  of  Hegel's  system,  one  could  refuse  his  assent  to 
the  fair  and  excellent  words  of  Prof.  Watson :  "  Contact 
with  a  mind  so  wide,  so  subtile  and  so  deep,  a  mind  fired 
with  sympathy  for  all  the  manifestations  of  the  human  spirit, 
cannot  be  otherwise  than  stimulating  and  ennobling." 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  HEGEL 


111 


:■  II 


lii! 


'-!! 


§  9.  The  preceding  chapter  may  serve  to  indicate  the  gen- 
eral standpoint  from  which  this  essay  on  Hegel's  doctrine  of 
the  will  in  its  application  to  the  institutional  life  of  the  race 
has  been  undertaken.  The  system  of  Hegel,  like  thought 
itself,  is  essentially  an  organism,  and  only  when  viewed  as 
such  can  we  hope  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  various 
phases  or  members  of  the  whole.  This  will  involve  a  brief 
survey  of  the  rise  and  development  of  the  main  problems 
for  which  each  generation  sought  a  solution,  and  which 
Hegel  had  to  face  anew,  and  of  the  system  in  which  his  own 
solution  is  embedded.  Hegel  found  before  him  the  claims 
of  nature  on  the  one  hand,  and  those  ot  spirit  on  the  other ; 
of  the  finite  and  of  the  infinite;  of  the  individual  and  of 
society ;  of  the  necessity  of  nature  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
moral  responsibility  on  the  other.  It  may  with  fairness  be 
said  that  Hegel  was  the  first  to  clearly  perceive  that  the 
claims  were  complementary  rather  than  antagonistic.  It  is 
in  this  that  his  essential  originality  exists.  Stirling  speaks 
of  him  as  a  "  crafty  borrower."  1  he  same  charge  has  been 
brought  against  Aristotle.  But  in  borrowing  (which  of 
necessity  is  an  element  in  all  progress,  especially  intellectual 
and  spiritual  progress)  Aristotle  and  Hegel  comprehended 
the  vitalizing  truth  in  the  systems  of  thei/  predecessors,  and 
embodied  it  in  higher  forms.  It  is  in  this  that  true  origi- 
nality consists- 

To  fully  indicate  the  method  by  which  Hegel  attempts  the 
22  [208 


I 


20'^ 


HEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


23 


:  the  gen- 
octrine  of 
[  the  race 
;  thought 
viewed  as 
le  various 
Ive  a  brief 
problems 
nd  which 
:h  his  own 
the  claims 
he  other ; 
al  and  of 
id.  and  of 
lirness  be 

that  the 
tic.  It  is 
ig  speaks 

has  been 
(which  of 
ntellectual 
irehended 
ssors,  and 
true  origi- 

empts  the 
[208 


reconciliation  of  the  opposing  doctrines  which  have  already 
been  referred  to  would  mean  an  exposition  of  the  entire 
system.  Prudence  itself  would  dictate  that  no  such  task  be 
attempted.  The  object  of  the  essay  will  have  been  attained 
if  it  serve  to  indicate  ( I )  the  problem  of  Hegel,  and  this  in 
its  ethical  bearings  chiefly;  and  (2)  how  the  individual  sub- 
ject, born  into  the  world  with  the  possibility  of  distinguish- 
ing itself  from  the  objects  it  knows  and  the  ends  it  chooses, 
gradually  erects  itself  into  a  person,  intelligent,  social,  ethi- 
chl,  by  consciously  identifying  himself  with  the  ethical  sub- 
stance into  which  he  is  born,  and  how  in  turn  "  the  micro- 
cosm of  the  individual  mind  reflects  and  reproduces  in  short- 
hand the  whole  of  that  process  which  has  taken  place  on  the 
grander  scale  of  the  world's  spiritual  history."' 

"  It  is  true  philosophy,"  says  Kant,  "  to  trace  the  diverse 
forms  of  a  thing  through  all  its  history."'  In  this  historical 
outline  of  the  problem  of  philosophy  as  it  presented  itself  to 
Hegel,  the  attempt  will  be  made  merely  to  disengage  the  lead- 
ing principles  of  the  development,  dwelling,  perhaps,  more 
particularly  on  the  systems  of  Kant,  Fichte,  and  Schelling, 
yet  only  in  so  far  as  the  elements  of  truth  in  their  systems  are 
transmuted  by  the  alchemy  of  Hegel's  genius  and  given  a 
fuller  and  more  harmonious  embodiment.  Nor  in  this  intro- 
duction does  it  occur  to  us  to  say  anything  new,  but  it  may 
be  that  through  insight  into  the  defects  and  inconsistencies 
of  preceding  systems  we  may  the  more  adequately  appreci- 
ate the  nature  of  Hegel's  problem,  and  also  some  of  the  de- 
fects in  its  solution.  The  problems  of  ethics  and  of  society 
are  not  new ;  and,  while  the  difficulty  lies  in  their  solution, 
yet  it  might  be  that  a  clearer  statement  of  the  real  problem 
would  carry  us  a  considerable  way  to  its  solution. 

§  10.  To  determine  the  true  relation  between  the  three 

'Caird,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  298. 
*Physiche  Geographie,  Introduction,  p.  iv.  §  4. 


|N»! 


i  ;'ii' 


il;' 


24 


HEGEUS  DOCTRINE  OE  THE  WILL 


[210 


points  of  rational  convergence,  Man,  Nature,  God,  has  been 
the  subject  of  reflective  thought  in  all  ages.  From  this  re- 
sults the  difficulty  which  Martineau  has  called  "  the  dualism 
of  the  intellect  dealing  with  a  triad  of  intelligibles."  To  the 
Greeks,  inasmuch  as  inner  experience  is  always  subsequent 
to  the  perception  of  the  external  world,  the  relations  of  God 
and  the  cosmos  appealed  with  the  greater  force.  Mediaeval 
philosophy,  as  a  result  of  Christianity,  was  engaged  almost 
entirely  with  the  relation  of  man  and  God,  to  the  subordina- 
tion of  the  claims  of  nature.  In  the  spirit  of  revolt,  the 
claims  of  nature  to  our  highest  regard  have,  in  modern 
thought,  been  perhaps  unduly  emphasized. 

"What  is  the  substance  or  unitary  reality  underlying  all 
the  diversity  of  the  world  around  us?"  was  the  question  of 
early  Greek  philosophy.  The  Ionic  races  solved  existence 
in  the  sure  and  certain  terms  of  physical  atheism ;  the  Doric 
in  terms  of  intellectual  pantheism.  Plato  endeavored  to 
mediate  between  them.  He  revered  Parmenides,  as  he  tells 
us,  more  than  all  other  philosophers  together :  for  he  had 
determined  the  future  of  metaphysics,  in  that  he  first  made 
thinking  intelligence  the  truth  of  things.  For  Plato,  reality, 
as  such,  is  spiritual.  In  his  system  mind  is  first  separated 
from  body.  Strictly  speaking,  however,  it  is  not  correct  to 
regard  his  system  as  a  metaphysical  dualism.  Aristotle's 
ontology  in  its  logical  outcome  is  a  dualism  that  inclines  to 
idealism.  The  relation  between  the  body  and  the  soul  pre- 
sents us  with  the  most  significant  example  of  the  dual  nature 
of  all  things.  Mind  is  the  principle  which  vitalizes  and  in- 
forms matter :  life  and  mentality  were  for  Aristotle  identical 
terms.  "  Existence  is  the  activity  of  the  Divine  Reason." 
When  he  comes  to  the  theology,  however — the  final  com- 
pletion of  his  philosophy — the  ideal  element  is  given  pre- 
eminence as  the  only  self-existent  reality.  God  is  no  longer 
the  perfect  Actuality  of  which  the  world  is  the  potentiality 


%. 


,     [210 

has  been 
this  re- 
dualism 
To  the 
tjsequcnt 
s  of  God 
[ediaeval 
i  almost 
bordina- 
volt,  the 
modern 

lying  all 
estion  of 
existence 
he  Doric 
k^ored  to 
5  he  tells 
r  he  had 
rst  made 
,  reality, 
eparated 
)rrect  to 
ristotle's 
clines  to 
>oul  pre- 
i\  nature 
>  and  in- 
identical 
Reason." 
lal  com- 
/en  pre- 
o  longer 
entiality 


21 1 J  HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  ^^ 

((5(/vn/i/f),  but  an  Actuality  absolutely  hvt\>  Awautui, — a  mere 
First  Cause,  not  a  Causa  Jmmancns,  and  here  we  are  but  a 
step  from  the  religion  of  annihilation.  Greek  philosophy  cul- 
minated in  a  psychological  and  ethical  dualism — a  dualism 
of  body  and  mind,  reason  and  sensibility — the  despair  of  a 
philosophy  of  the    oncrete  life  of  man. 

§  II.  In  the  middle  ages,  in  spite  of  the  fundamental 
doctrine  of  Christianity — the  essential  unity  of  apparent 
disparates — this  withdrawal  from  nature  became  still  more 
pronounced.  For  them,  it  is  true,  the  Real  was  the  Uni- 
versal, but  a  universal  won  through  abstraction.  The  re- 
bound to  the  opposite  extreme  was  inevitable.  The  watch- 
word of  the  revolt  was  "the  Real  is  the  individual:" 
whatever  is  true  must  be  in  the  actual  world,  and  present  to 
sensation.  To  maintain  or  dispute  the  truth  of  this  proposi- 
tion has  been  the  task  of  modern  philosophy. 

§  12.  The  system  of  Descartes,  with  whom  modern  philos- 
ophy is  usually  said  to  begin,  forms  a  g?tnglion,  as  it  were, 
between  the  old  and  the  new.  His  system  is  important  for 
the  reason  that  all  the  problems  of  modern  inquiry  were 
either  explicity  stated,  or  immanent  in  it.  For  Descartes, 
corpus  est  res  extensa;  mens  est  res  cogitans.  The  dualism 
of  mind  and  matter  is  absolute.  Mind  and  matter,  spiritual 
and  corporeal  substance  have  parallel  and  original  rights. 
Thus,  Descartes  puts  us  face  to  face  with  the  real  difficulty 
of  philosophy.  If  the  system  represents  the  final  type  of 
philosophy,  a  distinction  which  Prof.  Huxley  claimed  for  it, 
then  philosophy  may  at  once  be  given  up  as  a  delusion. 
There  are  three  criticisms  that  may  fairly  be  made  against 
Descartes*  system,  (i)  If,  as  Descartes  asserts,  mind  and 
matter  are  things-in-themselves,  absolutely  separated  from 
each  other,  they  can  have  no  conceivable  nature.  In  order 
that  a  thinking  substance  exist,  it  must  have  a  perception  or 
thought  of   some   object.      The   "thinking   substance"   of 


% 


26 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[212 


(fiji 


m 


i* 


Descartes  is  like  Aristotle's  First  Cause,  which  dwells  at  in 
ever-receding  end  from  its  object — "  thinking  upon  thought." 
If  we  are  to  be  consistent,  we  must  admit  that  such  a  First 
Cause  and  such  a  thinking  substance  are  both  unknown  and 
unknowable.  (2)  In  the  exigency  of  explanation  Descartes 
assumes  that  there  is  an  apprehension  by  the  mind  of  what 
is  external  to  it.  Such  an  assumption  is  also  inadmissible. 
Eithef  the  premises  or  the  assumption  must  be  given  up. 
It  mind  is  simple,  abstract  self-consciousness,  with  no  object 
but  itself,  and  matter  the  extended,  passive  substance  Des- 
cartes assumes  it  to  be,  there  can  be  no  knowledge  one  of 
the  other.  Mind  and  matter  are  in  some  way  elements  of  a 
unity:  and  when  severed  their  nature  becomes  inconceiv- 
able. (3)  In  the  Cartesian  system  the  relation  which  God 
occupies  is  a  merely  external  one — a  tertium  quid — to  mind 
and  matter ,  producing,  uniting  and  sustaining  them,  not  by 
any  intelligible  evolution  of  Kis  nature,  but  going  beyond 
Himself  to  create  existences  beside  Himself  by  a  miracle 
altogether  external  and  arbitrary.  It  is  a  substitution  of 
assertion  for  reason.  Descartes'  conception  is  that  our  idea 
of  God  is  not  God  in  us,  but  an  idea  of  which  God's  exist- 
ence is  the  cause.  Since,  then,  in  God,  who  is  the  Absolute 
Unity,  idea  and  reality  fall  asunder  (He  is  conceived  simply 
as  the  Cause  of  our  idea  of  Him),  God  is  made  a  purely 
objective  and  finite  existence. 

The  work  of  Malebranche  and  Spinoza  was  but  the  legiti- 
mate evolution  into  clearer  consciousness  of  the  principles 
immanent  in  the  system  of  Descartes.  Malebranche  turned 
to  supernaturalism  and  transfigured  the  universe  into  God ; 
Spinoza  to  naturalism  and  translated  God  into  the  universe. 
For  Spinoza  mind  and  matter  are  only  accidents  of  the  one 
substance ;  they  are  really  the  same  thing  looked  at  from 
different  points  of  view.j     Interaction  is  out  of  the  question. 

'  Prof.  Lloyd  Morgan,  in  his  Introduction  to  Comparative  Psychol  jy,  p.  3, 


'1 


^1 


ok 


213]  IIEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  27 

The  two  kinds  of  processes  exist  alongside  of  each  other,  not 
through  each  other.     Deus  sive  natiira. 

"  In  one  point  of  view,"  says  Prof.  Edward  Caird,  "  this 
theory  of  Spinoza  deserves  the  highest  praise  for  that  very 
charac^^eristic  which  probably  excited  most  odium  against  it 
at  the  time  it  was  first  published,  namely,  its  exaltation  of 
matter.  It  is  the  mark  of  an  imperfect  Spiritualism  to  hide 
its  eyes  from  outward  nature,  and  to  shrink  from  the  mater- 
ial as  impure  and  defiling.  But  its  horror  and  fear  are  proofs 
of  weakness;  it  flies  from  an  enemy  it  cannot  overcome. 
Spinoza's  bold  identification  of  spirit  and  matter,  God  and 
nature,  contains  {♦*  it  the  germ  of  a  higher  idealism  than  can 
be  found  in  any  philosophy  that  asserts  the  claims  of  the 
former  at  the  expense  of  the  latter.  A  system  that  begins 
by  making  nature  godless,  will  inevitably  end,  as  Schelling 
once  said,  in  making  God  unnatural.  The  expedients  by 
which  Descartes  keeps  matter  at  a  distance  from  God  were 
intended  to  maintain  His  pure  Spirituality;  but  their  ulti- 
mate effect  is  seen  in  his  reduction  of  the  spiritual  nature  to 
mere  will.  As  Christianity  has  its  superiority  over  other  re- 
ligions in  this,  that  it  does  not  end  with  the  opposition  of  the 
human  to  the  divine,  the  natural  to  the  spiritual,  but  ulti- 
mately reconciles  them,  so  a  true  idealism  must  vindicate  its 
claims  by  absorbing  materialism  into  itself.  It  was,  there- 
fore, a  true  instinct  of  philosophy  that  led  Spinoza  to  raise 
matter  to  the  co-equal  of  spirit,  and  at  the  same  time  to  pro- 
says  "  that  the  reality  of  object  and  subject  is  strictly  co-ordinate.  And  those  who 
hold  this  view  regard  as  little  DCtter  tha;i  nonsense  the  assertion  that  whereas  the 
reality  of  the  subject  is  unquestionable,  the  reality  of  the  object  is  a  matter  that 
is  open  to  discussion.  Self  and  cosmos  are  of  co-ordinate  reality ;  they  are  the 
polarized  aspects  of  experience  as  explained  through  reason."  While  subject  and 
object  are  co-ordinate,  yet  the  subject  is  conscious  of  ;he  relation  which  exists.  It 
is  the  recognition  of  this  which  constitutes  the  fundamental  difference  between 
the  doctrine  of  Spinoza  and  Herbert  Spencer  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  Idealism 
on  the  other.  Spencer  remains  true  to  the  logical  implications  of  his  doctrine; 
Spinoza  failed  to  do  so. 


( 


i 


ii 


i|li;:.i 

.!,!!:! 


llili 


I:' 


ll  i 


28 


HECEJS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE   WILL 


[214 


test  against  the  Cartesian  conception  of  matter  as  mere  inert 
mass,  moved  only  by  impulse  from  without.  '  What  were  a 
God  that  only  impelled  a  world  from  without?  '  says  Goethe. 
'  It  becomes  Him  to  stir  it  by  an  inward  energy,  to  involve 
nature  in  Himself,  Himself  in  nature,  so  that  which  lives  and 
moves  and  has  its  being  in  Him  can  never  feel  the  want  of 
His  power  or  His  Spirit.'  "♦ 

Nevertheless  Spinoza's  transformation  of  the  world  sub 
specie  aeternitatis  was  superficial.  He  left  it  p'most  as  he 
found  it.  His  Absolute  Being  is  the  dead  Jl-absorbing 
substance,  not  the  spirit  that  reveals  itself  in  nature  and  in; 
the  mind  of  man.  His  parallelism  is  at  times  equivalent  to 
the  doctrine  of  Leibnitz  of  the  essential  identity  of  mind  and 
matter.  In  passing,  however,  from  abstract  indeterminate 
being  to  the  idea  of  God  conceived  as  a  self-determining 
principle,  the  source  of  all  the  manifold  determinations  of 
the  universe,  he  broke  with  the  very  first  principle  of  his 
system,  but  in  so  doing  caught  sight,  as  Caird  says,  of  the 
idea  of  a  unity  pre-supposed  in  and  transcending  the  diflTer- 
ence  between  matter  and  mind,  subject  and  object. 

§  13.  Historically  the  parallelistic  monism  was  turned  in 
two  directions — of  materialism  and  of  idealism.  From 
Bacon,  who  "  disclosed  the  way  to  unfettered  waters  and  un- 
dreamed shores,"  had  resulted  a  predilection  to  materialism, 
and  the  natural  scientists  were  disposed  to  follow.  Hobbes 
was  their  philosophical  leader.  In  his  system  individualism 
was  embodied  in  its  severest  form.  He  taught  the  natural 
origin  of  the  state  as  Locke  did  that  of  knowledge.  Man  is 
merely  a  part  of  nature ;  all  knowledge  is  experience ;  ex- 
pesience  is  merely  sensuous  perception.  Hume's  skepticism 
was  the  truth  immanent  in  the  systems  of  Bacon,  Hobbes, 
and  Locke,  and  was  the  contribution  of  English  thought  to 
philosophy. 

*Eisays  in  Literature  and  Philosophy^  Vol.  I. 


1^ 


[214 

ere  inert 
it  were  a 
i  GcEthe. 
)  involve 
lives  and 
:  want  of 

orld  siib^ 
st  as  he 
bsorbing 
e  and  ia 
i^alent  to 
nind  and 
lerminate 
ermining 
ations  of 
le  of  his 
^s,  of  the 
he  diflfer- 

iurned  in 
From 
s  and  un- 
terialism, 

Hobbes 
vidualism 
e  natural 

Man  is 
nee ;  ex- 
kepticism 

Hobbes, 
lought  to 


;2i5]  HEGEL S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  29 

Leibnitz  took  the  direction  of  idealism.  "  His  system," 
Paulsen  says,  "  is  absolutely  determined  by  his  relation  to 
Spinoza."5  Regarding  existence  as  a  whole  as  an  ascending 
series  of  mental  forces,  he  conceived  of  soul  and  body  as  but 
lower  and  higher  forms  of  one  being.  The  monads  are 
beings  of  a  spiritual  nature.  His  disciple  Wolfif  made  soul  and 
Ijody  two  different  things,  and  God  he  conceived  as  the  ex- 
ternal Governor  of  the  universe,  thus  returning  at  a  stroke  to 
the  Cartesian  point  of  view ;  from  monism  to  a  lifeless  dual- 
ism. 

Thus  from  the  doubt  of  Descartes  and  of  Bacon  comes  the 
pure  Intellect ;  which  by  Descartes  is  left  to  itself,  while  by 
Bacon  it  is  given  over  to  the  leading  and  the  light  of  nature. 
The  followers  in  the  line  of  the  Cirtesian  tendency  were,  as 
has  been  seen,  Spinoza,  Leibnitz  and  Wolflf ;  in  that  of  Bacon, 
Hobbes,  Locke  and  Hume — the  one  led  to  materialism  and 
skepticism,  the  other  to  an  unsatisfying  and  imperfect  spirit- 
ualism. The  development  in  both  directions  had  now 
reached  its  limit,  and  philosophy  was  hurried  by  David 
Hume,  the  prime  inspirer  of  modern  philosophy  in  its  de- 
structive and  constructive  sides,  to  a  new  and  decisive  turn- 
ing point. 

§  14.  Abstraction  was  the  essential  error  of  pre-Kantian 
philosophy ;  and  even  Kant,  as  will  be  noted  in  what  follows, 
was  never  able  to  entirely  free  himself,  much  less  his  system, 
from  the  conditions  of  his  time.  Matter  was  set  over  against 
mind,  the  individual  against  society,  th°  universal  reign  of  law 
in  the  natural  ^;orld  against  God,  freedom  and  immortality. 
The  fundamental  enquiry  of  the  great  idealistic  movement 
begun  by  Kant  and  carried  to  its  completion  by  Hegel,  was 
to  find  a  principle  sufficiently  comprehensive  to  give  impar- 
tial recognition  to  the  claims  of  the  scientific,  ethical  and  re- 
ligious consciousness  of  man.  In  other  words,  to  show  that 
^Introduction  to  Philosophy  (translated  by  Thilly),p.  293. 


■\\ 


< 


30 


HEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[216 


•11;'. 


ml 


man,  natural,  intelligent,  moral,  social  and  religious,  is  a 
being  all  of  one  piece,  and  that  he  came  from  and  goes  to 
God.  Such  was  the  problem  of  idealism,  a  revolution  as 
rich  in  results  for  philosophy  as  that  which  Copernicus 
effected  for  astronomy.  An  outline  of  the  development 
from  Kant  to  Hegel  remains  to  be  given. 

Far  from  denying  the  necessary  connection  of  objects  of 
experience  in  space  and  time  (the  contention  of  natural 
science),  Kant  rather  set  to  work  at  the  beginning  to  dis- 
cover the  universal  principles  which  our  ordinary  and  scien- 
tific knowledge  presupposes.  For  only  when  these  have 
been  found  can  the  more  ambitious  problem  concern- 
ing the  existence  of  supra-sensible  realities,  God  and  the 
freedom  and  immortality  of  the  human  soul,  be  with  hope  of 
success  attempted.  Starting  provisionally  from  the  ordinary 
dualism  of  thought  and  things,  by  a  gradual  transformation 
of  the  theory  Kant  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the  only 
way  of  accounting  for  this  endless  order  of  nature  is  that  it  is 
one  which  our  own  intelligence  forges ;  that,  instead  of  our 
passively  apprehending  objects  (which  Empiricists  had 
maintained  was  the  sole  condition  of  our  orderf.d  experi- 
ence), it  is  rather  by  our  intelligence  alone  that  known 
objects  are  constituted.  Our  "experience"  must  forever 
remain  unexplained  and  unaccounted  for  so  long  as  we 
maintain  our  belief  that  thought  and  nature  are  abstract  op- 
posites.  The  point  of  view,  then,  which  Kant  would  have  us 
take  is  this,  that  the  science  o*  being  and  the  science  of 
knowledge  are  organically  one  and  inseparable.  This  was 
the  fundamental  principle  in  the  systems  of  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle. Berkeley's  idealism  was  built  on  sensations  rather  than 
on  reason.  The  development  from  Kant  to  Hegel  was  the 
bringing  to  clearer  consciousness  the  truth  immanent  in  the" 
systems  of  Plato  and  Aristotle.* 


r;'i 


•  It  may  be  interesting  to  quote  the  view  of  the  late  Prof.  Romanes,  made  from 


'li: 


;;^' 


l;i' 


■■■'5; 


[216 

us,  is  a 
goes  to 
Lition  aa 
pernicus 
lopment 

bjects  of 
natural 
T  to  dis- 
id  scien- 
:se  have 
concern- 
and  the 
I  hope  of 
ordinary 
ormation 
the  only 
that  it  is 
d  of  our 
ists    had 
1  experi- 
t  known 
:  forever 
g  as  we 
tract  op- 
i  have  us 
:ience  of 
This  wa5 
md  Aris- 
ther  than 
was  the 
nt  in  the" 

I,  made  from 


2 1 7]  HEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  3 1 

The  outcome,  then,  of  Kant's  doctrine  of  space  and  time 
which  is  interwoven  with  his  entire  system  of  thought,  con- 
sidered in  reference  to  itself  alone,  is  that  our  conception  of 
the  nature  of  the  Absolute  Reality  must  be  a  spiritual  one. 
For  his  doctrine,  and  the  facts  on  which  it  is  based,  main- 
tains the  organic  and  living  relation  between  subject  and 
object.  Both  must  be  viewed  as  dcpendently  sharing  in  a 
universal,  spiritual  life,  in  which  each  sub:  ists  and  has  its 
essential  being.  Space  and  time,  therefore,  we  are  to  re- 
gard not  as  self-subsistent  and  pre-existent  conditions  of  the 
Absolute — as  previous  philosophers  had  done  when  they 
conceived  of  the  Absolute  materialistically  as  "Substance:" 
rather  we  are  to  consider  space  and  time  as  dependent 
functions  of  the  Absolute.  "  Substance  "  is  a  purely  relative 
notion  and  possesses  only  "phenomenal"  validity.  The 
Absolute  is  essentially  spiritual. 

Kant  found  in  the  "static  and  permanent  ego"  the  pre- 
supposition of  all  connected  experience.  But  it  was  a 
knowledge  of  phenomena  only.  He  had  shown  that  the 
mind  was  not  the  mere  creature  of  environment — the  merely 
passive,  as  Locke  and  Hume  had  conceived  it.  The  great 
factor,  it  is  true,  was  the  active  synthesis;  but  there  was 

the  standpoint  of  science  in  his  work,  Mind  and  Motion  and  Monism,  p.  36  f. 
(edited  by  Prof.  Lloyd  Morgan) :  "  If  the  advance  of  natural  science  is  now 
steadily  leading  us  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  motion  without  mind,  must 
we  not  see  how  the  independent  conclusion  of  mental  science  is  thus  independently 
confirmed — the  conclusion,  I  mean,  that  there  is  no  being  without  knowing?  To 
me,  at  least,  it  does  appear  that  the^  time  has  come  when  we  may  begin,  as  it 
were,  in  a  dawning  light,  to  see  that  the  study  of  nature  and  the  study  of  mind 
a.e  meeting  upon  this  greatest  of  possible  truths.  And  if  this  is  the  case — if 
there  is  no  motion  without  mind,  no  being  without  knowing — shall  we  infer, 
with  Clifford,  that  universal  being  is  mindless,  or  answer  with  a  dogmatic  nega- 
tive that  most  stupendous  of  questions — Is  there  knowledge  with  the  Most 
High  ?  If  there  is  no  motion  without  mind,  no  being  without  knowing,  may  we 
not  rather  infer  that  it  is  in  the  medium  of  mind  and  in  the  medium  of  knowl- 
edge  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being?  " 


i 


r 


32 


HEGEL  S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[218 


t 


Still  needed  the  '*  prick  of  sense  from  the  things-in-them- 
selves."  Kant  was  never  able  to  bridge  the  chasm  between 
phenomena  and  noumena  in  the  world  of  knowledge,  nor 
between  desire  and  reason  in  the  world  of  practice.  The 
human  spirit  has  two  fundamental  characteristics,  the  im- 
plications of  which  were  not  clearly  grasped  by  Kant,  though 
he  himself  had  snoplied  the  principle  by  which  the  apparent 
disparates  might  be  reconciled.  On  the  one  l..nd,  the 
human  mind  as  such  is  conditioned  in  eo  far  as  it  stands  in 
an  essential  relation  of  dependence  for  its  spiritual  develop- 
ment on  the  world  of  nature,  of  society,  and  on  God.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  mind  has  within  it  a  principle  of  ration- 
ality or  spontaneity  which  enables  it  to  react  on  its  environ- 
ment, and  thus  create  its  intellectual,  its  moral,  and  its 
religious  world.  Kant,  it  is  true,  made  mind  a  factor  in  the 
constitution  of  experience ;  he  also  recoiled  from  Individual- 
ism in  morals ;  yet  he  never  reached  the  organic  view  of 
the  relatio;!  of  the  environment  to  the  individual  which  re- 
gards environment  in  all  its  phases,  of  nature,  society,  and 
religion,  as  well  as  the  individual,  as  having  their  life  in  the 
organic  evolution  of  one  spiritual  principle.  "The  age  of 
Kant,"  says  President  Schurman,  "was  one  of  transition, 
and  Kant's  philosophy  has  not  escaped  the  contradictions 
immanent  to  all  Becoming."^  He  was  unable  to  perceive 
the  full  significance  of  the  doctrine  which  is  fundamental  to 
his  system.  He  could  not  free  his  system  from  the  abstract 
dualism  that  destroys  any  system  in  which  it  occurs—  the 
separation  of  thought  and  being.  His  insight  led  him  to 
see  that  existence  can  only  mean  existence  for  a  conscious- 
ness— but  he  could  not  hold  himself  fully  to  the  idea  that 
consciousness  in  the  very  act  of  being  conscious  transcends 
the  dualism  between  itself  and  its  object :  that  thus,  freedom 
may  include  necessity,  the  noumenal  the  phenomenal,  that 

"^Kantian  Ethics  and  Ethics  of  Evolution,  p.  18. 


219]  HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  jj 

spirit  is  the  truth  of  nature.  To  show  this  was  the  work  of 
Fichte  and  Schelling,  but  especially  of  Hegel. 

Ill  the  preceding  section  it  was  maintained  that  Kant's  pe- 
culiar merit  (a  merit  to  which  previous  philosophers  could 
not  legitimately  lay  claim)  consisted  in  his  constant  en- 
deavor to  do  full  justice  to  the  claims  of  the  scientific,  as  well 
as  to  those  of  the  moral  and  religious,  consciousness.  His  in- 
vestigation resulted  in  the  discovery  of  the  categories  and  of 
their  supreme  condition,  the  unity  of  apperception.  Fichte, 
Schelling  and  Hegel  worked  out  in  their  fulness  the  implica- 
tions of  this  idealistic  principle.  The  connection  between 
mind  and  nature  pointed  to  a  common  root  of  both — an  or- 
ganic unity  with  many  antitheses;  that  the  objective  uni- 
verse of  nature  and  of  history,  in  that  it  is  intelligible,  is  the 
working  of  an  immanent  Reason  to  which  man's  conscious- 
ness is  akin.  Thus  German  Idealism  was  to  raise  the  mod- 
ern mind  to  a  higher  consciousness  blending  the  "  living 
realism  of  the  ancient  world  and  the  inwardness  and  ideality 
of  the  Christian  religion." 

Starting  from  this  principle  of  the  unity  of  apperception, 
or  the  ego,  Fichte,  followed  by  Schelling,  made  it,  as  abso- 
lute, their  metaphysical  principle.  For  Fichte,  as  for  Hegel,, 
philosophy  means  the  systematic  development  of  thought 
from  its  most  abstract  phase  to  the  wealth  and  fulness  of 
real  existence.  His  task,  as  he  conceived  it,  was  to  bring 
into  organic  connection  the  disjecta  membra  of  the  Kantian 
system.  His  fundamental  conception,  as  Prof.  Paulsen  re- 
marks, is  that  being  is  life,  inner  life.  His  merit  was  to 
demonstrate  how,  ultimately,  all  reality  must  be  referred  to 
«elf-consciousness ;  to  make  explicit  what  was  implicit  in 
Kant's  notion  of  the  unity  of  apperception.  "  The  fii:<al 
notion  of  Fichte's  philosophy,"  says  Prof.  Adamson,  "  ex- 
pressed more  clearly  in  the  later  works  than  in  the  Wissen- 
schaftslehrey  has  been  seen  to  be  that  of  the  divine  or  spirit- 


% 


-A 

■  i 


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f 


If: 


!:«; 


34  HEGEL'S  DOCTRLXE  OF  THE   WILL  [22O 

ual  order  of  which  finite  spirits  are  the  manifestation  or  real- 
ization, and  in  the  light  of  which  human  life  and  its  sur- 
roundings appear  as  the  continuous  progress  in  ever  higher 
stages  towards  the  realization  of  the  final  end  of  reason. 
Under  this  conception,  the  oppositions  of  thought  which 
play  so  important  a  part  in  philosophy — Being  and  Thought, 
Mind  and  Nature,  Soul  a.  d  Body,  Freedom  and  Law, 
Natural  Inclination  and  Moral  Effort,  Mechanism  and  Tele- 
ology— are  reconciled.  They  appear  in  their  due  place  as 
different  aspects  of  the  several  stages  in  and  through  which 
the  spiritual  order  is  realized.  But,  as  has  also  been  seen,  the 
element  wanting  in  Fichte's  system  is  the  definite  recogni- 
tion between  this  view  of  the  spiritual  development  of  reason 
and  the  natural,  historical  development  of  nature  and  hu- 
manity." ^ 

For  this  neglect  of  and  often  contempt  on  the  part  of 
Fichte  for  the  riches  of  intelligence  as  revealed  in  the  forms 
of  nature  and  history,  in  other  words,  of  "  experience,"  his 
system  has  been  accused  of  being  pure  subjective  idealism 
— a  charge  that  is  not  altogether  without  foundation.  Sup- 
port from  experience  to  the  essential  principle  of  his  ideal- 
ism was  to  be  brought  from  nature  by  Schelling,  from  history 
by  Hegel. 

Fichte's  chief  concern  lay  in  the  sphere  of  the  practical 
reason.  Accordingly,  he  did  not  go  further  than  to  speak 
of  nature  as  merely  not-I.  The  noumenon  of  Kant  still 
haunts  his  system.  It  was  Schelling's  endeavor  to  supple- 
ment Fichte  in  this  regard  and  exhibit  nature  as  an  intelli- 
gible system,  as  a  function  or  process  of  intelligence  towards 
self-consciousness  as  its  necessary  goal;  i.  e.,  to  show  its 
essential  oneness  with  the  ego  as  intelligent,  and  not,  as 
Descartes  had  done,  as  the  dead  antithesis  of  conscious 
thought.     "  Matter,"  says  Schelling,  "  is  the  universal  seed- 

^  Fichte  (In  Blackwood's  Philosophical  Classics),  p.  219  f. 


mmi 


221]  HEGEI^S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE   WILL  || 

corn  of  the  universe,  in  which  is  wrapped  up  everything  that 
unfolds  itself  in  the  later  development."  We  thus  come  to 
see  that  nature  and  personality  are  not  two  things,  but  are 
correlatives  rather;  yet  not  merely  correlatives.  "They  are 
members  of  one  great  organism  of  intelligence. "9  Thus  for 
Schelling  as  for  Herbert  Spencer  the  force  which  permeates- 
nature  is  the  same  as  that  which  finds  expression  in  the 
world  of  mind.  In  his  "  Identity  Philosophy,"  however,  h& 
returned  to  the  position  of  Spinoza,  in  which  subject  and 
object,  mind  and  nature,  are  regarded  as  parallel  develop- 
ments of  equal  importance  and  value.  All  difference  is 
merged  in  absolute  oneness.  He  finds  nothing  in  spirit  but 
what  he  found  in  nature.  Thus  he  came  to  hold  what  seems 
to  be  the  characteristic  doctrine  of  all  pantheism  and  natural- 
ism— the  principle,  that  is,  which  regards  subject  as  the 
mere  correlative  of  object,  self-consciousness  of  nature,  that 
the  spiritual  and  material  world  are  two  "sides  of  the  same 
shield,"  and  "  imply  each  other  equally^  In  the  small 
treatise  of  1804  "Philosophy  and  Religion,"  Schelling  puts 
forth  clearly  and  distinctly  the  doctrine  that  the  existence  of 
the  universe  is  not  essential  to  the  Absolute ;  rather  its  rela- 
tion to  the  latter  is  one  of  mere  accident.  This  is  Spinoza's 
conception  of  the  Absolute  as  mere  blank,  indeterminate 
being,  and  in  returning  to  this  position,  Schelling  resigned 
the  real  import  of  idealism  in  which  the  idea  of  God  is  that 
of  a  self-determining  principle,  the  source  and  life  of  all  the 
manifold  determinations  of  the  universe. 

§  15.  About  Hegel,  as  about  every  other  philosopher,  the 
essential  question  must  be,  what  was  his  problem  and  what 
his  method?  Briefly  stated,  his  problem  was  to  discover  the 
nature  of  that  Uiiity  which  is  the  underlying  principle  of  the 
spheres  of  nature  and  mind,  and  to  indicate  with  all  possible 
comprehensiveness  how  this  Reality  reveals  itself  as  the  in- 
»  Seth,  From  Kant  to  Hegel,  p.  57. 


■A 


36  HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  [232 

dwelling  life  of  science,  art,  morality  and  religion.  "  From 
all  periods  of  the  world,"  says  Wallace  of  Oxford,  "  from 
mediaeval  piety  and  stoical  pride,  Kant  and  Sophocles, 
science  and  art,  religion  and  philosophy,  Hegel  gathers  in 
the  vineyards  of  the  human  spirit  the  grapes  from  which  he 
crushes  the  wine  of  thought."  The  vital  part  of  the  Critical 
philosophy  is  the  perception  that  the  Absolute  is  not  sub- 
stance but  self-conscious  spirit ;  that  is,  the  unity  of  self- 
consciousness  is  the  principle  to  which  all  things  are  to  be 
referred,  and  in  which  they  must  ultimately  find  their  expla- 
nation. To  this  result  all  previous  philosophy  tended. 
Plato,  Aristotle,  Kant,  Fichte  and  Schelling  (to  name  merely 
those  who  were  more  conscious  of  the  tendency  than  others) 
all  strove  towards  that  idealism  which  finds  the  interpreta- 
tion of  existence  in  self-consciousness.  Conscious  spirit  is 
the  ideal  end  and  real  pre-supposition  of  the  universe.  In 
other  words,  if  there  exists  a  universe,  a  cosmos,  God  is; 
and  God  is  Spirit  because  the  universe  exists. 

The  answer,  then,  to  the  question  ho\v  Hegel  came  to 
his  notion  of  spirit?  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  entire  previous 
development  was  organic  to  his  system  and  exists  as  its  pre- 
supposition. Yet  this  detracts  nothing  from  his  originality. 
Rather  the  reverse  is  true.  Hegel  saw  the  vital  spirit  of 
previous  philosophy  and  was  in  earnest  with  his  discovery. 
What  he  endeavored  to  show  was  that  in  spite  of  all  their 
apparent  conflicts  the  kingdoms  of  nature  and  of  spirit  are 
essentially  one ;  or  rather,  that  this  conflict  was  but  "  the 
self-appointed  manifestation  of  their  ultimate  unity."'"  In 
what  precedes  we  have  tried  to  indicate  how  and  when  these 
various  conflicts  have  arisen  in  philosophy.  They  were 
rather  phases  of  the  one  conflict  of  spirit  with  nature.  We 
have  also  seen  how,  previous  to  this,  mind  was  the  absolute 

"  Eucken,  The  Fundamental  Concepts  of  Modern  Philosophic  Thought  (Trans, 
by  Phelps)  p.  16. 


re 

ev 

sh 

dil 

orj 

sell 

neJ 


223]  tlEGELS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  ^j 

opposite  of  matter,  spirit  of  nature,  freedom  of  necessity,  the 
individual  of  society,  the  Infinite  of  the  finite,  faith  of  knowl- 
edge, the  knowable  of  the  unknowable.  It  was  Hegel's 
task,  and  herein  consists  the  vital  and  valuable  element  in 
his  philosophy,  to  show  that  the  one  is  but  the  truth  of  the 
other;  that  soul  is  the  truth  of  the  body,  freedom  of  nocei- 
sity,  the  individual  of  society,  the  Infinite  of  the  finite. 
"  The  central  object  of  the  Hegelian  system  is  by  no  means 
mystical  or  repellent,  and  lies  sufficiently  close  to  men's  in- 
terests to  demand  careful  inquiry.  For  it  is  nothing  else 
than  an  attempt  to  show  that  all  thought  is,  on  its  human 
side,  a  gradual  approximation  to  God,  and  on  its  Divine  side, 
a  gradual  revelation  of  His  own  nature.  And  the  means  by 
which  the  result  is  sought  to  be  obtained  is  nothing  else  than 
an  unfaiHng  belief  in  Reason,  and  in  its  power  to  correct  the 
imperfect  notions  of  logic  and  science,  in  its  power  to  con- 
struct and  justify  ideas  of  its  own,  in  its  irrefragable  and  ab- 
solute authority." "  Reason  for  Hegel  is  the  immanent 
principle  of  the  world. 

The  principle  of  Identity  had  been  the  watchword  of  pre- 
vious philosophy.  Matter  was  matter  and  mind  was  mind : 
and  mind  and  matter  were  absolutely  opposed.  Hegel 
arrived  at  the  principle  of  his  entire  system  by  a  considera- 
tion of  the  very  nature  of  the  self-conscious  and  self- 
determining  spirit.  The  implications  of  this  method  had 
been  only  imperfectly  grasped  by  Kant  and  Fichte.  Hegel 
recognized  that  self-consciousness  is  the  unity  to  which 
every  manifold  must  be  referred.  But  he  was  the  first  to 
show  that  thought  or  self-consciousness  is  founded  upon 
difference:  that  consciousness  is  a  "many-in-one" — an 
organic  whole,  a  unity  in  which  the  opposition  between  the 
self  and  the  external  world  is  overcome.  Again,  behind  the 
necessity  of  nature  Kant  found  a  noumenal  world  for  the  free 
"  Courtney,  Studies  in  Philosophy. 


i 


ii 


■A 


I 


38 


HEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  T'fE  WILL 


[224 


i'l'ii 


play  of  man's  spiritual  life.  To  this  dualism  or  othcr- 
worldlincss,  Hegel  opposes  the  freedom  of  necessity ;  only 
through  the  transforrrntion  of  our  natural  impulses,  affec- 
tions and  desires  can  the  spirit  accomplish  its  freedom,  1.  ^., 
through  a  world  which  at  first  appears  the  very  opposite  of 
spirit,  and  along  the  beaten  highways  of  this  common  world 
lies  the  way  which  leads  to  the  everlasting  life." 

§  16.  For  Hegel,  Logic  and  Metaphysics  are  identical. 
Logic,  he  tells  us,  is  "the  all-animating  spirit  of  all  the 
sciences,  and  its  categories  the  spiritual  hierarchy."  In 
reality  there  is  no  passing  over  "the  ugly  broad-ditch" 
from  thought  to  nature  and  spirit.  The  categories  never 
existed  otherwise  than  in  nature  and  spirit.  They  are 
equally  objective  and  subjective.  Reason  is  an  organism : 
for  us  there  is  but  one  reason  and  one  universe,  and  the 
universe  exists  as  the  manifestation  of  that  reason.  This  is 
anthropomorphism ;  but  it  is  not  to  be  lost  sight  of  that 
without  some  form  of  anthropomorphism,  we  must  give 
allegiance  to  thorough-going  agnosticism.  Everything  we 
attribute  to  existence — the  existence  of  the  atom  even — is  a 
reflection  of  our  own  spirit — the  spirit  is  back  of  it  all. 

Logic,  then,  is  the  study  of  the  pure  thought-forms  (pure 
in  the  sense  that  they  are  ideally  separated  for  purposes  of 
examination)  which  are  embodied  in  nature  and  spirit,  whose 
animating  principles  they  are.  Hegel  attempts  to  prove  in 
the  Logic  that  the  ultimate  unity  of  the  world  is  spiritual  by 
showing  how  the  various  categories,  through  which  we  are 
accustonr  ed  to  explain  the  world — being,  measure,  essence, 
force,  substance — hypostatized  aspects  of  reality,  and  as 
"  interlocked  moments"  passing  into  each  other  through 
their  own  immanent  dialectic,  resolve  themselves  into  that  of 
self-consciousness  or  spirit.     There  is  no  positive  without  a 

"  A  somewhat  fuller  account  of  the  ethical  development  from  Kant  to  Hegel 
will  be  given  in  a  succeeding  chapter. 


1 


225] 


IlEGF.nS  DOCTRrXE  OF  TIfE  WILL 


39 


ne^Mtivc,  and  on'y  throu{;h  this  antithesis  is  advance  made  to 
a  liifjher  synthesis.  It  is  affirmation,  through  negation  to 
reaffirmation  with  enriched  content.  '•  Through  death  to 
life,"  Is  the  fundamental  conception  of  the  Hegelian  Logic,  as 
we  shall  find  it  to  be  also  the  vital  and  informing  principle 
of  his  Ethics.  "  An  immanent  negativity"  is  the  "  ground  of 
advance,  the  very  soul  of  the  world-march."  The  Logic 
leads  up  to  the  Absolute  Idea  which  is  the  perfect  form  of 
that  relation  we  are  conscious  of  as  existing  between  subject 
and  object,  between  a  knower  and  his  knowledge. '3 

§  17.  As  has  been  noted  above,  nature  is,  for  Hegel,  not 
the  mere  co-equal  of  spirit.  It  is  "  petrified  intelligence  " — 
thought  externalized.  Or  rather  it  is  the  necessary  manifes- 
tation of  spirit  in  the  sense  that  through  nature  spirit  realizes 
itself.  The  universe  is  in  externality  what  God  is  in  inter- 
nality.  "  Nature  is  in  herself  the  process  of  the  evolution  of 
the  spirit  from  her  own  bosom ;  and  consequently  embodies 
the  spiritual  presence  throughout."  Aristotle  and  Schelling 
found  the  principle  of  the  world  in  Absolute  Spirit  as  pure 
self-consciousness  (pure  form  opposed  to  the  finite  world). 
For  Hegel,  God  is  that  Absolute  Spirit  which  is  being 
realized  in  the  world,  and  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being ;  through  whom  and  to  whom  are  all  things. 

In  the  philosophy  of  nature  Hegel's  purpose  is  to  show 
how,  starting  from  the  conception  of  nature  which  regards 
it  as  pure  externality  in  space,  it  manifests  more  and  more 
explicitly  through  its  rising  spiral  of  mechanism,  chemism 
and  organism,  until  it  unfolds  its  essential  nature — its  truth 

•Trof.  Watson  (The  Problem  of  Hegel,  Philosophical  Revino,  Vol.  III.)  well 
remarks :  "  Herbert  Spencer  says  the  true  Reality  must  be  beyond  the  distinc- 
tion of  subject  and  object,  and  that  of  it  we  can  only  affirm  that  it  is — without 
being  able  to  define  in  the  least  luhat  is  is.  Now  Hegel  in  showing  that  pure 
'  being'  is  pure  nothing  has  refuted  this  doctrine  by  anticipation.  The  Absolute 
of  Spencer  is  simply  Hegelian  '  being,'  of  which  we  cannot  even  affirm  that  it  is, 
without  contradicting  ourselves." 


'i 


;t; 


40 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[226 


i,!'-'.; 


— in  mind.  Thus  in  nature  thought  is  objectified.  The 
categories  are  the  constitutive  and  regulative  principles  of 
objectivity  and  of  the  thinking  subject.  Thus  nature  is 
in*;elligible  and  man  intelligent,  that  is,  nature  is  organic  to 
intelligence,  and  exists  only  in  the  life  of  spirit.  The  Abso- 
lute, on  whom  subject  and  object,  intelligence  and  the  in- 
telligible world,  are  in  living  organic  dependence,  is  an 
Absolute  Spirit.  The  material  world  in  its  source  and  goal 
exists  as  the  manifestation  of  a  living  Spiritual  Activity. 
'All  that  God  is  He  imparts  and  reveals,  and  He  does  so  at 
first  in  and  through  nature.""* 

§  18.  "From  our  point  of  view,"  says  Hegei,  "mind  or 
spirit  has  for  its  presupposition  nature,  of  which  it  is  the 
truth,  and  for  that  reason  its  absolute  prius.  In  this  its  truth 
nature  is  vanished,  and  mind  has  resulted  as  the  "Idea" 
entered  on  possession  of  itself.  Here  the  subject  and  object 
of  the  Idea  are  one — either  is  the  intelligent  un'ty,  the 
notion.  This  identity  is  absolute  negativity — for  whereas  in 
nature  the  intelligent  unity  has  its  objectivity  perfect  but 
externalized,  this  self-externalization  has  been  nullified,  and 
the  unity  in  that  way  been  made  one  and  the  same  with 
itself.  Thus  at  the  same  time  it  is  this  identity  only  so  far 
as  it  i?  a  return  out  of  nature. "'^ 

One  of  Christianity's  best  gifts  to  philosophy  was  to  show 
that  natuie,  instead  of  being  essentially  evil  and  opposed  to 
spirit,  is,  in  reality,  the  very  means  through  which  must  be 
realized  the  highest  spiritual  life ;  that,  in  other  words,  nature 
exists  for  spirit.  Hegel  more  than  any  preceding  philoso- 
pher, by  his  thorough  appreciation  of  the  ethical  and  relig- 
ious significance  of  Christianity,  saw  the  implication  of  this 
truth.  In  this  respect.  Browning  is  in  the  realm  of  poetry 
what  Hegel  is  in  that  of  philosophy.     It  is  this  which  gives 

'♦  Werke,  VI,  §  140.     (Wallace's  Translation.) 
"  Ibid.,  VII,  §  381.     (Wallace's  Translation.) 


m% 


22 7 j  HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  ^j 

to  the  philosophy  of  the  one,  as  it  does  to  the  poetry  of  the 
other,  its  essential  healthfulness  and  spiritual  vitality,,  Nature 
like  mind  is  rational,  hut  through  consciousness  mind  spirit- 
ualizes and  informs  nature  as  an  instrument  of  its  purposes. 
From  this  point  of  view  man  at  once  completes  and  trans- 
cends nature.  "  All  tended  to  mankind,  and  man  produced, 
all  has  its  end  thus  far."  Born  into  the  vorld  at  a  certain 
point  of  time,  man's  life  is  a  process  of  thought  and  action — 
finding  himself  at  home  in  the  world.  In  knowing  the  ex- 
ternal world,  and  identifying  himself  with  the  ethical  sub- 
stance, he  comes  gradually  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  com- 
mand yviMi  ffaurdr— first  to  kuow  and  therewith  to  be  himself — 
to  feel  his  calling  to  be  that  of  a  co-worker  in  the  realization 
of  the  divine  purpose  "  to  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

"  Progress  is  man's  distinctive  mark  alone. 
Not  God's  and  not  the  beast's.    God  is,  they  are, 
Mar.  partly  is  and  wholly  hopes  to  be."  '•  , 

It  is  to  this  conception  of  the  world  that  we  have  been 
brought  by  this  brief  and  imperfect  introduction  to  Hegel's 
philosophy,  namely,  the  consciousness  of  the  identity  of  the 
power  without  and  the  power  within ;  that  the  necessity,  the 
machinery  of  nature  and  of  the  institutions  in  which  the  hu- 
man mind  has  expressed  itself,  is  but  the  manifestation,  the 
organic  evolution,  of  the  same  spiritual  principle  by  which 
man  is  raised  to  conscious  freedom.  And  in  the  spiritual 
life  of  man  is  continued  the  revelation  of  the  Absolute  Spirit, 
which,  as  Hegel  says,  "  was  begun  in  nature."  "  God  dwells 
in  all,"  says  Browning,  "  from  life's  minute  beginnings  up  at 
last  to  man 


\ 


:i 


But  in  completed  man  tegins  anew 
A  tendency  to  God." 


'•  Browning,  A  Death  in  the  Desert, 


:\M 


CHAPTER  III 


CONSCIOUSNESS 


li 


■■*■* 


I 


§  19.  In  the  preceding  chapter  we  endeavored  to  trace 
the  gradual  emergence  in  the  history  of  thought  of  the 
various  problems  for  which  Hegel  sought  a  comprehensive 
principle  of  explanation.  Thought  or  intelligence  is  an 
organism  and  in  its  history  has  developed  into  varied  and 
complex  forms.  One-sided  embodiments  have  been  passed 
by  in  its  onward  course,  yet  the  existence  of  which  de- 
pended on  their  having  within  them  some  eletncn'  ".  truth. 
Materialism  and  idealism,  the  necessity  of  nature  and  the 
freedom  implied  in  the  commands  of  our  moral  nature,  un- 
belief and  faith,  the  individual  and  society — does  Hegel 
afiford  us  any  assistance  in  inclining  our  minds  to  the  truth 
of  the  claims  of  each  of  these?  Such  a  question  cannot  be 
answered  at  the  present  stage  of  this  essay  and  never  dog- 
matically. It  may  be  said  that  philosophy,  like  poetry, 
answers  no  questions.  Its  function  is  rather  to  rectify  our 
mind's  attitude  towards  those  questions  which  the  mind 
itself  proposes.  Existence  can  be  adequately  solved  only 
in  a  life.  Philosophy  may  serve  at  least  to  free  us  from 
arbitrary  notions  and  fruitless  questions. 

Development  was  found  to  be  the  key -word  of  He^jeJ -; 
philosophy.  !^ind  comes  forth  from  nature,  of  which  it  is 
the  truth  or  realization.  Hegel  here  brings  us  face  to  face 
with  the  central  point  of  modern  philosophical  controversy. 
Ordinarily  we  conceive  the  soul  a  spiritual  substance  in- 
serted as  an  extraneous  principle  at  some  definite  point  in 
42  [228 


r  -ii 


229] 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRLVE  OF  THE   WILL 


43 


% 


the  growth  of  the  body,  which  we  regard  as  a  material  sub- 
stance. Biology,  at  present  busy  with  the  application  of 
the  law  of  development  to  mental  phenomena,  shows  that 
such  a  notion  must  be  qualified.  The  physical  organism, 
we  are  told  has  been  evolved:  and  our  intellectual  and 
moral  nature  also  bears  traces  of  development.  May  not 
consciousness  itself  have  been  evolved  also?  In  this  chapter 
it  remains  briefly  to  inquire  in  what  sense  Hegel  would  per- 
mit the  application  of  the  idea  of  development  to  human 
consciousness. 

§  20.  We  may  conceive  the  development  of  consciousness 
to  take  place  in  one  of  three  ways ;  ( i )  Consciousness  in 
its  last  analysis  is  a  product ;  the  development  of  the  mind 
is  a  development  entirely  from  without.  "  Mental  phe- 
nomena," says  Lewes,  "  are  functions  of  the  organism,"  and 
"  the  organism  is  a  part  of  nature  and  is  swept  along  in  the 
great  current  of  natural  forces."  '  Thus  for  Lewes,  thought 
is  itself  an  ultimate  development  of  matter.  A  few  pages 
previous  (p.  74),  he  had  admitted  that  "  the  conquest  of 
modern  speculation  is  that  our  world  arises  in  conscious- 
ness;" he  began  by  asserting  that  the  material  substance 
was  only  such  through  consciousness,  and  ended  by  making 
it  a  quality  of  the  same  material  substance ;  and  this  is  the 
fundamental  difficulty  of  all  materialistic  explanations.  We 
can  gain  an  intelligible  expression  of  matter  and  force  in 
terms  of  thought,  but  no  such  expression  of  thought  or  con- 
sciousness in  terms  of  matter  and  force.  "  You  cannot  get," 
says  Principal  Caird,  "  to  mind  as  an  ultim  .te  product  of 
matter,  for  in  the  very  attempt  to  do  so,  you  have  already 
begun  with  mind." '  Again,  "  that  notion  of  Force  or  Phy- 
sical Causality,  from  which  the  matenalist  would  construct 
the  world  independently  of  mind,  is  itself  a  creation  or  cate- 

'  Study  of  Psycholo^,  p.  103. 
»  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  88. 


f 

I 

4 


•  ii 


44 


HEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[23CX 


Ml 


I- 


•1;!' 


gory  of  mind,  and  instead  of  looking  for  thought  or  mental 
energy  as  the  final  product  into  which  force  is  convertible^ 
we  must  regard  force  as  itself  something  which  exists  only 
for  thought."3 

Those  who  conceive  consciousness  to  be  a  function  of  the 
nervous  system  have  called  attention  to  the  intimate  connec- 
tion that  increasing  knowledge  discloses  between  the  psy- 
chical and  physical  processes ;  to  the  principle  which  is  the 
highest  generalization  reached  in  science — the  conservation 
of  energy ;  the  sum  of  real  motion,  they  assert,  and  of  mo- 
tive force  is  constant ;  and  life  and  consciousness  having  had 
beginnings  are  therefore  products — the  result  of  physical 
processes.  Thus  they  find  it  possible  to  pass  from  the  inor- 
ganic to  the  organic,  and  from  the  organic  to  the  conscious, 
without  calling  in  the  aid  of  any  principle  other  than  that  ol 
force.  Darwin  speaks  of  an  a  priori  tendency  of  the  individ- 
ual to  maintain  itself  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Where^ 
we  may  ask,  did  this  self-causation  or  seif-development  come 
from  ?  The  criterion  of  existence  for  modern  thought  is. 
activity,  and  thus,  at  a  stroke,  the  conception  of  the  mind  as. 
a  tabula  rasa  is  brushed  aside  as  intolerable.  By  no  flight 
of  imagination  can  we  conceive  that  everything  comes  into  a: 
thing  from  without.  How  then  explain  this  organic  unity 
"  which  maintains  itself  by  continuous  self-differentiation  and 
integration?"  The  most  perfect  unity  is  that  of  self-con- 
sciousness, for  in  it  all  externality  has  disappeared  and  the 
principle  of  force  is  still  less  applicable  than  in  the  phe- 
nomena of  life.  Force  can  exist  only  between  two  things, 
external  to  each  other.  But  in  consciousness,  its  very 
nature  is  in  the  fact  that  externality  has  vanished,  and  for  it 
such  a  principle  as  force  exists  as  a  relation.  Thus  the 
question  returns  upon  us,  how  can  consciousness  arise  from 
that  for  the  existence  and  constitution  of  which  conscious- 

'  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  93. 


m 


.231] 


n EG  EDS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


45 


ness  is  necessary  ?  It  is  not  necessary  to  deny  the  exist- 
ence of  matter ;  to  understand  it  is  our  single  duty.  The  vital 
principle  of  evolution  is  that  any  reality  is  understood  only 
in  the  totality  of  its  development.  Whatever,  then,  is  subse- 
quently evolved  must  have  been  originally  involved.  "  But 
this  is  a  view  of  the  world  which  spiritualizes  matter  rather 
than  materializes  mind;  for  in  the  whole  realm  of  being 
down  to  the  lowest  existence  in  outward  nature,  it  leaves 
nothing  absolutely  foreign  to  thought,  nothing  which,  either 
tictually  or  virtually,  thought  cannot  claim  as  its  own."  ♦ 

(2)  A  second  conception  of  the  application  of  the  idea  of 
-development  to  the  soul  is  Leibnitz's  "Pre-established" 
harmony  between  soul-life  and  the  life  of  the  world.  This 
<;an  only  be  mentioned  in  passing.  It  may  with  fairness  be 
-said  that  all  would  now  admit  a  certain  power  of  determina- 
tion from  both  inner  and  outer.  We  pass,  therefore,  to  the 
(3)  conception — that  of  Hegel — which  regards  the  life  of 
consciousness,  of  the  soul,  as  a  self-development,  or  self- 
Kdetermination  through  environment,  and  after  what  has 
already  been  said  we  may  here  be  very  brief. 

§  21.  For  Hegel,  as  we  have  seen,  the  real  is  the  intelli- 
gible, and  the  intelligible  the  real.  Aristotle  had  reached 
this  doctrine  when  he  conceived  "  the  reason  of  man  to  be  a 
pure  universal  or  universal  Jiivo//<f,  the  evolution  of  which  to 
•complete  self-consciousness  is  one  with  the  process  whereby 
the  objective  world  comes  to  be  known:"  yet  he  was  unable 
to  maintain  himself  at  the  height  of  this  conception.  Start- 
ing out  with  the  admission  of  a  material  principle  essentially 
different  from  the  principle  of  reason,  this,  if  consistently 
<:arried  out,  would  bring  him  to  a  religion  of  annihilation, 
and  a  freedom  not  won  by  overcoming  the  world,  but  by  a 
complete  withdrawal  from  its  influence. 

For  the  doctrine  that  the  real  is  the  intelligible  and  the 

*  Caird,  loc,  cit.  p.  1 10. 


I 


;  I 


IT 


46 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  TJIE   WILL 


[232 


intelligible  the  real,  Kant  prepared  the  way  by  showing  that 
without  a  subject  there  exists  no  object;  that  existence  has 
meaning  only  for  a  thinking  self.  Even  granting  the  a 
posteriori,  as  against  the  a  priori,  origin  of  conceptions; 
admitting  also  the  entire  Associationist  psychology,  yet  in 
some  way  these  conceptions  are  immanent  in  experience, 
and  are  still  the  rational  constitutive  principles  of  the  uni- 
verse. So  that  the  individual  in  coming  to  self-conscious- 
ness througli  reaction  with  the  world  of  nature,  shows  that 
the  principles  at  work  in  his  consciousness  are  identical  with 
those  involved  in  the  constitution  of  nature.  Kant  and  his 
successors,  then,  could  accept  with  gratitude  whatever  the 
biologist  may  tell  us  of  the  dependence  of  soul-life  on  the 
organism.  They  could  accept  as  a  matter  of  course  the 
development  from  feeling  or  sensation  as  traced  by  the 
Empiricists.  The  Scientist  and  the  Idealist  are.Qlie.in  their 
abiding  faith  that  the  world  is  rational  at  the  core. 

From  this  standpoint  it  is  clearly  erroneous  to  speak  of 
the  conscious  rational  being  as  such,  in  spite  of  the  necessary 
relation  it  bears  to  influences  of  environment,  as  in  any 
absolute  ense  determined  from  without.  Such  an  idealistic 
theory  of  the  internal  and  external  world  enables  us  to  see 
their  essential  unity,  and  recognize  the  relative  nature  of  any 
distinction  between  self-determination  and  determination 
through  environment.  Since  this  environment  or  the  .ex- 
ternal world  is  the  manifestation  of  reason,  it  thus,  though 
at  first  presenting  itself  under  the  form  of  contingency  and 
as  a  hindrance,  comes  to  be  recognized  as  the  very  condi- 
tion under  which  the  development  of  the  individual  conscious 
spirit  is  accomplished.  Thought  then,  Hegel  would  say,  is 
an  eternal  process  of  self-manifestation  and  self-realization, 
which  in  its  necessary  evolution  reveals  itself  as  force,  and 
manifests  itself  in  the  various  forms  of  existence  and  laws  of 
phenomena,  natural  and  spiritual.     So  that  the  history  of  a 


233]  IIEGELS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  47 

conscious  spirit,  in  its  relations  with  the  environment,  physi- 
cal, ethical,  religious,  into  which  it  is  born,  is  not  a  struggle 
between  two  independent  and  unrelated  forces,  but,  as  Prof. 
Edward  Caird  expresses  it,  "  the  evolution  by  antagonism  of 
a  spiritual  principle."  Thus  it Js  seen  that  ultimately  it  is 
for  the  creation  of  the  Person  that  environment  exists.  Man 
has  within  him  a  principle  which,  finding  itself  at  home  in 
nature,  erects  him  above  nature,  and  in  turn  enables  him  to 
recognize  his  oneness  with  the  Eternal  and  Absolute  Sub- 
ject, the  Infinite  Spirit  for  whom  both  nature  and  the  in- 
dividual spirit  exist.  From  this  standpoint,  also,  as  Lange 
says,  "  man's  conscious  life  remains  still  a  problem  when  all 
the  consequences  of  Darwinism  have  been  granted." 

Hegel,  t'  en,  would  assent  to  Lewes*  statement  that  the 
triumph  of  modern  speculation  is  that  the  world  arises  ip 
consciousness,  but  would  understand  it  differently.  He 
would  not  deny  the  existence  of  matter ;  yet  he  would  insist 
on  a  clear  understanding  of  what  is  meant  by  it.  If  the 
external  world  in  space  and  time  exist  only  for  a  self-con- 
scious subject,  consciousness  can  no  longer  be  regarded  as  a 
product  of  that  world.  Materialism  formerly  asserted  that 
matter  was  the  creative  condition  of  force ;  now  it  asserts 
that  force  is  the  creative  condition  of  matter.  Idealism 
accepts  this,  seeing  in  force  nothing  but  a  function  of  spirit, 
since  force  is  in  a  conditioned  relation  to  space  and  time, 
which  are  themselves  spiritual  functions.  The  kingdoms  of 
nature  and  spirit  are  organically  one  and  inseparable. 
"  Spirit,"  as  President  Schurman  expresses  it, "  is  the  eternal 
reality,  and  nature  its  eternal  manifestation."  * 

^Belief  in  God. 


II 


li 


if 


^11 


/ 


i 


CHAPTER  IV 


SUBJECTIVE  MIND 


-41 

7 


■■i^»\ 


§  22.  In  the  "Encyclopaedia  of  the  Philosophical  Sciences," 
which  is  the  only  "  complete,  matured,  and  authentic  state- 
ment of  Hegel's  philosophical  system," '  the  subject  matter 
of  philosophy  is  distributed  under  the  three  main  heads — 
(i)  Logic,  (2)  Philosophy  of  Nature,  and  (3)  Philosophy  of 
Mind.  "It  is  this  third  part,"  says  Prof.  Wallace,  "or 
rather  it  is  the  last  two  divisions  therein  (embracing  the 
great  general  interests  of  humanity,  sjch  as  law  and  morals, 
religion  and  art,  as  well  as  the  development  of  philosophy 
itself)  which  forms  the  topics  of  Hegel's  most  expanded 
teaching,  and  is  the  most  interesting  part  of  Hegel." 

If  Hegel  has  a  metaphysical  basis  of  ethics — a  philosophy 
of  right,  of  the  state  and  of  history — he  also  has  a  psychol- 
ogy. The  Philosophy  of  Mind  has  to  do  primarily  with  the 
world  of  intelligence  and  of  humanity.  It  is  the  philosophy 
of  man,  i.  e.,  psychology  in  its  broadest  sense ;  which,  as 
Herbart  says,  shoots  its  roots  into  the  sciences  of  life,  and 
blossoms  in  the  historical  sciences.  The  Philosophy  of 
Mind  is  subdivided  into  the  three  parts — (i)  Subjective,  (2) 
Objective,  and  (3)  Absolute  Mind.  It  demonstrates  the 
several  stages  of  that  development  by  which  man  makes 
explicit  what  was  implicit  in  his  nature  from  the  first.  Be- 
ginning with  the  individual  as  a  sentient  organism,  a  mere 
bit  of  nature  so  to  speak,  it  shows  how,  from  the  first  letting 
into  the  soul  through  feeling  of  the  infinite  secret  of  the  uni- 


48 


'  Wallace,  Logic  of  Hegel,  p.  xi. 


[234 


,1    , 


235]  HEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  ^jo 

verse,  step  by  step  the  individual,  "  rounded  to  a  separate 
mind,"  advances  to  completed  freedom  by  coming  into  con- 
scious relationship  with  the  intelligible  world,  the  ethical 
substance,  and  finally  into  conformity  with  the  Divine  im- 
manence.    Man  at  first  is  a  mere  bundle  of  sensations  and 
impulses.     Out  of  these  he  is  to  construct  his  intellectual 
and  moral  world,  and  thus  realize  in  himself  th^t  freedom 
which  is  the  birthright  of  spirit.     It  is  in  this  bioad  sense  of 
the  realization  of  the  human  spirit  that  we  are  to  understand 
Hegel's  Philosophy  of  Mind,  and  in  which  his  doctrine  of 
the  will  consists.     In  this  essay  we  are  concerned  with  the 
first  two  divisions  of  the  Philosophy  of  Mind,  namely.  Sub- 
jective and  Objective  Mind,  or   as  they  may   be   named, 
Psychology  and  Ethics.     Under  the  first  designation  Hegel 
would  understand  the  development  of  the  individual  mind 
from  its  naturalness  to  formal  freedom ;   under  the  second, 
the  mind  as  it  determines  itself  in  its  action  by  the  idea  of 
the  good. 

(i)  The  first  of  the  sub-divisions  of  the  Philosophy  of 
Mind — Subjective  Mind — considers,  as  has  been  s;.  1,  the 
subject-matter  of  what  is  generally  termed  Psychology,  and 
includes  Anthropology,  Phenomenology,  and  Psychology. 
—  (2)  The  field  of  Objective  Mind  includes  man's  rationality — 
as  externally  organized  in  the  domestic,  social,  and  political 
relations  of  human  beings.  (3)  "Absolute  Mind"  exhibits 
man  in  the  perfection  of  his  moral  and  spiritual  character. 
Hegel  ever  remained  the  sworn  enemy  of  abstraction.  You 
cannot  abstract  man  from  his  natural  and  social  relations. 
He  is  born  into  them,  and  not  by  withdrawal  from,  but 
through  such  relations,  does  man  realize  his  nature.  Yet 
only  in  so  far  as  the  individual  reacts  upon  environment  is 
there  any  interest  whatever  for  us.  It  is  man  as  subject  to 
natural  conditions  that  constitutes  the  subject-matter  of 
Anthropology. 


If* 


li 


I 


.M-i 


h 


so 


IIEGEVS  DOCTRIXE  OF  THE  WILL 


[236 


'?f 


(rt)  Anthropology 

§  23.  The  mind  as  soul  is  physically  conditioned.  What 
Hegel  calls  Anthropology  is  the  science  at  the  present  time 
more  generally  known  as  "  Physiological  Psychology  " — the 
soul  in  its  relations  to  the  body.  "  The  end  of  nature  is  to 
destroy  itself,  to  break  through  the  immediate  sensible  cov- 
ering, and,  like  the  phoenix  from  its  flame,  to  arise  from  this 
externality — new  born  as  spirit."  Spirit  is  the  being-with- 
self  {Beisichsein)  of  the  Idea.  The  meaning  of  this,  in  the 
light  of  what  precedes,  will  now  be  clear.  The  Idea  has  re- 
turned from  its  self-alienation  to  self ;  and  the  development 
which  spirit  undergoes  is  the  gradual  advance  from  natural 
determinateness  to  freedom.  The  soul  for  Hegel  is  no 
separate  immaterial  entity.  Wherever  there  is  nature,  there 
is  soul  as  its  immanent,  ideal  life.  "  Soul  is  the  substance 
or  '  absolute '  basis  of  all  the  particularizing  and  individual- 
izing of  mind  :  it  is  in  the  soul  that  mind  finds  the  material 
on  which  its  character  is  wrought,  and  the  soul  remains  the 
pervading,  identical  ideality  of  it  all.  But  as  it  is  conceived 
thus  abstractly  the  soul  is  only  the  sleep  of  mind — the  pas- 
sive vovq  of  Aristotle — which  is  potentially  all  tilings."  '  For 
Hegel,  holding  the  conception  of  reality  he  does,  the  ques- 
tion of  the  immateriality  of  the  soul  can  have  no  interest 
and  little  meaning.  Such  a  question  has  meaning  only  for 
those  who  maintain  what  Lotze  calls  "  that  simple  and  thor- 
ough division  of  reality,  which  places  matter  on  one  side 
and  the  mind  on  the  other,  confident  and  full  of  faith  in  re- 
gard to  the  former,  timid  and  doubtful  about  the  latter."  ^ 
"  We  need  no  more  ask,"  says  Aristotle,  "  whether  the  soul 
and  body  are  one,  than  whether  the  wax  and  the  impression 
stamped  upon  it  are  so."  ♦     Plato  had  separated  the  soul 

»  Werke,  VII,  §  389.     (Wallace's  Translation.) 
^Metaphysic  (English  Translation,  Vol.  II.,  p.  190.) 
^De  Anima,  II,  i,  412,  b.  8, 


/ 


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237]  HEGELS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  51 

from  its  bodily  environment.  Aristotle,  though  he  did  not 
realize  all  the  import  of  the  conception,  made  soul  the  truth 
of  body :  yet  it  was  by  no  means  the  product  of  physiolog- 
ical conditions :  rather,  it  was  the  truth  of  body,  the  i,\a\a, 
in  which  alone  do  the  bodily  conditions  gain  their  real  mean- 
ing. It  remains  a  unity  throughout  the  various  stages  of  its 
development. 

Before  its  emergence  as  mind,  the  soul  passes  through 
three  stages,  designated  by  Hegel  the  Natural  or  Physical, 
the  Feeling,  and  the  Actual  Soul.  ( I )  The  physical  soul 
is  as  it  were  an  anima  iniindi,  a  world-soul,  still  in  sympathy 
with  the  influences  of  the  universe.  The  lower  down  in  the 
scale  of  development  the  more  complete  is  this  sympathy 
with  the  cosmic  life.  This  soul  universal  is  "  rather  the 
universal  substance,"  as  Hegel  says,  "  which  has  its  actual 
truth  only  in  individuals  and  single  subjects."  Next  we  find 
the  general  planetary  life  of  the  nature-governed  mind 
specialized  into  divisions  in  accordance  with  the  nature  of 
the  geographical  continents,  thereby  producing  the  varieties 
of  race.  Next  the  soul  is  further  deuniversalized  into  the 
individualized  subject — individual  in  reference  only  to  special 
talent,  temperament,  character  and  physiognomy,  of  fam- 
ilies or  single  individuals.  In  the  development  of  the  soul 
as  an  individual  or  permanent  subject,  Hegel  marks  the  four 
stages — and  here  he  speaks  only  in  the  most  general  terms 
of  the  individual  life — namely,  childhood,  when  mind  is 
wrapped  up  in  itself;  youth,  the  period  of  storm  and  stress; 
manhood,  the  period  of  the  individual's  true  relation  to  its 
environment;  and  lastly,  old  age,  the  period  of  freedom 
from  the  strain  of  the  outward  present.  What  the  life  of  the 
individual  consists  in  is  rising  out  of  the  abstract  and  unde- 
veloped "  in  himself,"  through  physical,  mental  and  moral 
control,  and  becoming  "  for  tiimself  "  what  he  is  at  first  only 
"  in  himself"  or  potentially — a  free  and  reasonable  being. 


I 


a 


..'..^^■miStiimMsi^tiM^f ' 


i 


}3  I/EGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  [238 

(2)  The  feeling  or  sentient  individual  is  the  simple 
"ideality"  or  subjective  side  of  sensation.  Its  individuality 
is  yet  merely  formal :  it  is  not  yet  a  true  self  or  subject,  and 
is  therefore  passive.  "  Everything,"  says  Hegel,  "  is  in  sen- 
sation ;  if  you  will,  everything  that  emerges  in  conscious  in- 
telligence and  in  reason  has  its  source  and  origin  in  sensa- 
tion ;  for  source  and  origin  just  means  the  first  immediate 
manner  in  which  a  thing  appears."  ^  The  sentient  life  serves 
as  the  substratum  of  the  self-conscious,  intelligent  and  willing 
soul.  The  individual  subject  at  first  immersed,  as  it  were,  in 
its  sensations,  desires,  instincts  and  passions,  gradually 
comes  to  give  these  a  place  as  its  own  in  itself.  In  this  way 
emerges  a  j^(/'-feeling  (^Selbstgef'uhl),  but  a  self- feeling  only 
in  the  particular  feeling — one  quite  different  from  that  of  the 
fully  furnished  self  of  intelligent  self-consciousness.  The 
subject  has  not  yet  learned  to  duly  subordinate  particular 
feelings  and  desires ;  whilst  the  intelligent  subject  har  ♦^he 
consciousness   of  his   intellectual   and    moral  world  n 

ordered  whole,  into  the  system  of  which  is  subsumeo  -«^n 
particular  idea,  feeling,  or  desire  as  it  arises.  It  is  through 
habit  that  these  various  feelings  group  themselves  about  the 
common  centre — the  soul,  which  in  time  moves  among  them, 
so  to  speak,  without  consciousness  of  the  fact,  and  is  thus 
disengaged  for  further  advancement  in  its  mental  life. 
"  Habit,"  says  Hegel,  "  is  the  mechanism  of  self-feeling,  as 
memory  is  the  mechanism  of  intelligence  ....  it  is  the 
mode  of  feeling  (as  well  as  intelligence,  will,  etc.,  so  far  as 
they  belong  to  self-feeling)  made  into  a  natural  and  mechani- 
cal existence.  .  .  .  The  main  point  about  habit  is  that  by  its 
means  man  gets  emancipated  from  the  feelings,  even  in  being 
affected  by  them."  ^  The  feelings  and  impulses  are  thus 
subordinated  and  controlled  by  the  individual. 

*  Werke,  VII,  §  400  {^Philosophy  of  Mind,  Wallace's  Translation). 
^Ibid.,  §  410  {Philoiophy  of  Mind,  Wallace's  Translation). 


r 


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. 


239]  HEGEUS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE   WILL  jj 

(3)  The  soul  becomes  actual  when  the  body  has  been 
appropriated  and  made  its  instrument;  the  various  parts  of 
the  body  being  made  organic  to  its  central  aim.  The  soul 
thus  becomes  a  single  subject,  of  which  the  body  is  the  sign. 
The  soul  thus  through  the  self-relation  of  the  various  feel- 
ings and  desires  arrives  at  a  higher  stage  of  its  development 
in  that  these  have  become  the  object  for  a  subject — a  subject 
with  a  world  external  to  it.  Reflected  thus  into  its  ideality 
the  soul  rises  to  become  consciousness. 

{b)  Phenomenology  of  Mind 

§  24.  Consciousness  as  such  is  the  relation  of  the  Ego  to 
an  object,  which  may  be  internal  or  external.  The  sentient 
soul  was  conscious,  but  only  in  a  dim  way ;  it  had  feelings, 
yet  was  scarcely  aware  that  it  had  them.  As  more  dis- 
tinctively consciousness,  the  soul  separates  itself  from  what 
it  feels,  and  as  subjec  is  conscious  of  an  object.  We  thus 
reach  the  second  stage  in  Hegel's  account  of  the  develop- 
ment of  subjective  mind — the  point  of  view  that  subject  and 
object  imply  one  another  equally.  The  aim  of  the  con- 
scious mind  is  to  really  see  itself  as  the  subject  for  which 
the  object  exists,  and  to  which  the  latter  is  organic;  as 
Hegel  says,  "to  make  its  appearance  identical  with  its 
essence,  to  raise  its  self-certainty  to  truth." 

The  stages  in  the  development  are  three  in  number:  (i) 
Consciousness  as  such  (^Das  Bewusstsein  als  solches)  ;  (2) 
Self-consciousness  {Selbstbewusstsein)  \  and  (3)  rational 
self-consciousness,  the  unity  of  consciousness  and  self-con- 
sciousness {Die  Vernuft),  "where  the  mind  sees  itself  em- 
bodied in  the  object,  and  sees  itself  as  implicitly  and 
explicitly  determinate,  as  Reason,  the  notion  of  the  mind." ' 
Under  these  three  stages  Hegel  includes  the  manifestations 
of  the  mind  in  sensuous  consciousness,  perception,  under- 

'  Werke,  VII,  §  417  (^Philosophy  of  Mind,  Wallace's  Translation). 


I, 


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c  .  HEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  [24O 

Standing,  self-consciousness,  and  reason.  The  sense-con- 
sciousness is  wealthiest  in  matter,  but  poorest  in  thought. 
Gradually  it  separates  itself  from  the  object,  making  it  a 
definite  system  of  relations— a  related  thing,  i.  e.,  perceives 
it.  The  consciousness  of  such  an  object  is  intellect.  This 
is  the  consciousness  active  and  outgoing,  rather  than  a  mere 
tabula  rasa,  receptive  and  passive ;  it  is  self-consciousness 
as  the  truth  of  consciousness,  making  me  aware  of  myself 
and  of  the  object  as  mine.  This,  for  Hegel,  is  the  im- 
pulsive, dynamic  or  practical  aspect  of  consciousness,  free- 
ing itself  from  its  sensuousness,  and  realizing  itself  through 
the  object.  From  the  point  of  view  of  consciousness  the 
object  is  merely  its  relative  other.  But  from  the  stand-point 
of  self-consciousness  or  reason  it  receives  the  rational 
characteristic  of  being  its  very  other. 

{c)  Psychology 
§  25.  In  the  Anthropology  the  soul  was  viewed  in  its  nat- 
ural  character   from   the    standpoint   of   Spinoza.     In   the 
Phenomenology  it  was  regarded  from  the  Fichtean  point  of 
view,  as  Ego  distinguishing  itself  from  nature ;  and  now  in 
the  Psychology  mind  is  regarded  by  Hegel  as  the  truth  of 
the  soul  and  of  consciousness,  that  is,  the  synthesis  of  the 
two  preceding  points  of  view ;   not  as  the  mere  negatic.i  of 
objectivity,  but  as  reconciled  and  in  alliance  with  it,  thus 
attaining  the  freedom  which  is  the  essence  of  spirit ;   as  in- 
telligence finding  itself  in  the  objects  it  knows,  and  as  will 
giving  itself  a  content  in  the  ends  it  seeks  to  realize.     "  Psy- 
chology "  had  already  come  into  use  as  a  designation  for  all 
that  Kegel    comprised    under    "subjective  mind,"  and  it 
would  thus  have  been  better  had  he  omitted  the  term  here. 
As  it  is,  he  regards  psychology  as  the  study  of  the  faculties 
or  general  modes  of  mental  activity,  gtia  mental ;   ideation, 
memory,  desire,  ^/f.,  apart  altogether  from  th  ir  empirical 


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241] 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  tVJLL 


55 


content-regarding   these   as   functions   of   the   one   hvmg 
unity-mind.     The  so-called  faculties  are  but   the  various 
stages  in  the  process  of  liberation  of  the  mind  from  the  form 
of  immediacy-to  become  an  individuality,  a  concrete  sub- 
iectivity      The  process  is  one  in  which  the  mmd  finds  and 
makes  the  world  its  own;  its  aspects  being:   (i)  Theoretical 
mind.     Intelligence  is  (apparently)  determined  from  with- 
out;  yet  as  knowing,  it  states  the  object  of  determination  as 
its  own.     Its  development  is  through  the  three  stages :   {a) 
intuition,  {b)  conception,  (.)  thought.     (2)  The  practical 
mind,  will.     The  mind  as  will  is  conscious  of  its  own  deter- 
mination.    Its  stages  are.  {a)  practical  feeling,  (^)  impulse 
(.)  happiness.     (3)  The  free  mind  in  which  tney  are  both 
united      This  is  will  as  free  intelligence.     The  mind  which 
knows  itself    as  free,  and  wills  itself  as  its  object,  is  the 
reasonable  will.     It  is  at  first  merely  formal  freedom,  and 
this  is  the  last  word  of  ihe  psychological  development  as 
traced  by  Hegel  under  "  Subjective  Mind/'     ^^f  ^^-""Jf 
to  the  consideration  of  the  content  with  which  the   self- 
unfolding  will  or  mind  has  invested  itself,  we  must  briefly 
gather  up  the  results  so  far  gamed,  and  understand  more 
fully  what  Hegel  means  by  the  will  and  its  freedom.        •  ^. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  MAN 


1 


§  26.  Hegel  everywhere  emphasizes  the  unity  and  con- 
tinuity of  mind.  He  could  have  no  sympathy  whatever  with 
the  so-called  doctrine  of  mental  faculties.  The  mind  is  a 
living,  developing,  organic  unity,  and  completed  freedom  is 
its  immanent  notion.  The  faculties  are  so  many  phases  of 
its  evolution.  ''The  distinction,"  says  Hegel,  "of  Intelli- 
gence from  Will  is  often  incorrectly  taken  to  mean  that  each 
has  a  fixed  and  separate  existence  of  its  own,  as  if  volition 
could  be  without  intelligence,  or  the  activity  of  intelligence 
could  be  without  will." '  In  knowledge  we  idealize  the  real, 
in  action  we  realize  the  ideal,  and  both  involve  self-conscious 
activity,  which  for  Hegel  is  the  primary  and  fundamental 
characteristic  of  man.  In  one  relation  self  consciousness  is 
knowledge;   in  another  relation  it  is  action. 

§  27.  The  will,  then,  for  Hegel,  is  the  mind;  not  any  sep- 
arate faculty  co-ordinate  with  other  faculties.  In  the  theo- 
retic sphere  it  is  the  mind  in  search  of  the  true;  in  the 
practical  sphere,  it  is  the  mind  in  search  of  the  good.  In- 
stead of  speaking  of  freedom  of  will,  we  should  speak  of 
freedom  of  mind.  The  self-determination  of  self-conscious- 
ness constitutes  man's  freedom.  The  freedom  of  the  will  or 
mind  is  the  freedom  of  the  whole  mind ;  the  freedom  of  self- 
determination  through  the  cosmos  it  knows  (i.  e.,  the  mind 
as  intelligent  subject)  and  in  the  ideals  to  which  it  is  de- 
voted (/.  e.,  the  mind  as  choosing  subject).     Spontaneity  is 

»  Werke,  VII,  §  445  (^The  Philosophy  of  Mind,  Wallace's  Translation). 
56  [242 


24 J]  HEGEDS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  57 

r"as  essential  to  consciousness  as  receptivity;  it  must  react  on 
1    impressions   from   the   environment,  just   as   in   the  moral  • 
sphere  it  must  react  by  way  of  identification  with  or  with- 
drawal from  the  solicitations  of  environment.     Thus  the  very 
fact  of   knowledge  implies  freedom.     The  activity  of  con- 
sciousness as  attention,  apart  from  the  activity  of  which,  as 
Hegel   says,  there   is   nothing  for  the  mind,  moves   freely 
among  the  elements,  modifying  and  informing  the  world  by 
its  own  inward  nature.     "  Even  in  knowledge,"  says  Green, 
"man  exerts  a  free  activity— an  activity  which  is  not  in  time, 
not  a  link  in  the  chain  of  natural  becoming,  which  has  no 
antecedents  other  than  itself,  but  is  self-originated." '     Thus 
the  mind,  by  its  free  activity,  abolishes  the  foreignness  of  the 
external  world  and  makes  the  world  its  cosmos.     Intelligence 
is  thus  essentially  a  process,  a  free  activity  to  which  the 
known  world  is  organic.     Intelligence  and  will  are  but  the 
action  and  counter-action  of  the  one  living,  organizing  unity 
—mind.     In  so  far  as  it  appropriates  its  determined  content, 
the  world  of   objects,  the  mind  is  theoretical  intelligence 
But  in  so  far  as  it  goes  on  to  determine  its  own  content  and 
constitute  its  own  ideals,  it  is  intelligence  as  practical;  it  is 
will,  and  has  entered  on  a  new  stage  of  self-realization.     The 
freedom  of  will  is  thus  in  thought,  and  the  will  can  make 
itself  objective  a?  it  becomes  a  thinking  will,  to  create  its  jwn 
universe  out  of  its  own  inmost  nature.     "These  two  sioes  of 
man's  nature,"  says  Prof.  Watson,—"  his  intelligence  and  his 
will-his  consciousness  of  the  world  and  his  consciousness 
of  himself— do  not  develop  independently  of  each  other;  for 
as  man  learns  to  comprehend  the  meaning  of  the  world  he 
also  learns  to  comprehend  himself."  3     For  Hegel  the  very 
essence  of  the  mind  is  what  it  becomes  through  its  own 
activity :  it  is  not  a  substance  but  a  subject ;   it  is  the  form 

^  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  %  i2, 
iComte,  Mill  and  spencer,  p.  ISO. 


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HEGEL'S  DOCTRIAE  OF  THE  WILL 


[244 


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I 


Of  its  intellectual  and  moral  environment;   in  both  of  which 
It  IS  striving  for  the  revelation  of  its  ideal. 
•         §  28.  The  will  is  then  the  entire  human  consciousness  on 
Its  active  side.     It  is  consciousness  as  it  attends  to  a  stim- 
ulus, and  as  it  realizes  the  highest  ideal  of  reason.     Yet  it  is 
far  from  being  thinking  will  that  mind  in  the  first  instance 
appears  as  consciousness.     Some  account  of  this  has  been 
given   in  the  preceding  chapter.     It  is  first  in  a  state  of 
nature;  yet  it  is  not  something  merely  natural.     To  begin 
with,  the   individual   has   sensations,    inclinations   and  im- 
pulses,  1-  common  with  the  animals,  and  these  are  the  first 
materials  of  his  self-unfolding.     Since,  however,  the  essen- 
tial self  of  the  individual  is   constituted  by  the  universal, 
spiritual  principle  of  Reason,  the  sensations  are  not  mere 
sensations,  nor  the  appetites  mere  appetites.     Reason  im- 
plicit  gradually   becomes    explicit.      The    sensations    are, 
through  the  unifying  activity  of  the  self-conscious  subject, 
made  perceptions;   that  is.  they  are  given  their  place  in  the 
subject's  comprehension  of  the  meaning  of  the  world;   and 
in  virtue  of  the  same  spiritual  principle  there  emerges  in 
consciousness  not  mere  appetites,  but  desires  for  the  fuller 
realization  of  the  conscious  life.     As  Hegel  remarks  of  the 
impulses  and  inclinations:  "  The  immanent  '  reflection  '   of 
mind  Itself  carries   it  beyond  their  particularity  and  their 
natural  immediacy,  and  gives  their  content  a  rationality  and 
objectivity,  in  which  they  exist  as  necessary  ties  of  social 
relation,  as  rights  and  duties."*     -Each  individual  has  a 
hfe  of  Its  own  only  in  so  far  as  it  exhibits  within  itself  the  ' 
life  that  is  implied  in  the  world  as  a  whole.     The  life  of  the 
individual  is  thus  one  phase  of  the  universal  life  that  pul- 
sates through  all  existence."  s 

Thus  the  life  of  sensation  and  impulse  is  the  substratum 

*  ^V'-'^^.  VII,  §  474  (  The  Philosophy  of  Mind,  Wallace's  Translation). 

*  Watson,  Comte,  Mill  and  Spencer,  p.  170. 


If^. 


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245]  HEGEL S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  59 

of  the  life  of  consciousness ;  and  apart  from  these,  conscious- 
ness, either  on  the  theoretical  or  practical  side,  must  remain 
an  abstraction.     The  life  of  consciousness  must  be  the  im- 
manent and  informing  principle  of  the  life  of  sensation  and 
impulse,  and  through  these  create  its  world  of  the  true  and 
the  good.     "  The  motive  power,"  as  Hegel  says,  "  is  the 
need,  instinct,  inclination  and  passion  of  man."  ^     Desire,  in 
addition  to  the  feeling  of  a  want,  presupposes  the  existence 
of  some  object  by  which  the  want  may  be  satisfied.     "  Im- 
pulse and  passion  are  the  very  life-blood  of  all  action ;  they 
are  needed  if  the  agent  is  really  to  be  in  his  aim  and  the 
execution  thereof."     "The  will,"  says  Hegel,  "as  thinking 
will  and  implicitly  free,  distinguishes  itself  from  the  particu- 
larity of  the  impulses  ....  the  reflective  will  now  sees 
the  impulse  as  its  own,  because  it  closes  with  it  and  thus 
gives  itself  specific  individuality  and  actuality.     It  is  now  on 
the   standpoint   of   choosing  between    inclinations,    and    is 
option  or  choicer  ^    This,   in  brief,  is   Hegel's  answer   to 
those  who  assert  the  determination  of  the  will  by  motives. 
The  self-presenting  subject  has  within  itself  the  idea  of  an 
end  to  be  realized,  and  the  adoption  by  the  subject  of  a  par- 
ticular impulse  as  the  means  for  the  realization  of  the  idea 
of  his  good  is  the  subject's  self-expression.     "  The  will  is  free, 
just  because  it  is  determined  by  motives:"^  or  as  President 
Schurman  says,  "  whoever  reflects  that  a  motive  is  really  an 
idea  and  that  an  idea  has  no  existence  apart  from  the  sub- 
ject that  has  it,  must  object  to  the  comparison  of  man  and 
his  motives  to  a  balance  and  its  weights.     The  former  is  a 
merely  ideal,  the  latter  a  real  duality.     Man  is   nothing, 
apart  from  his  ideas,  but  the  weights  and  the  balance  have 
each  an  independent  existence,"  9 

«  Philosophy  of  History,  Translated  by  Sibree,  p.  23. 

'  Werke,  VII,  §  476-7  {^The  Philosophy  of  Mind,  Wallace's  Translation). 

^D'Axcy,  Short  Study  of  Ethics,^.  Z^. 

'^Kantian  Ethics  and  the  Ethics  of  Evolution,  p.  15. 


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6o 


HEGEUS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[246 


Gradually  the  individual  will  or  the  self  attains,  through 
reflection  and  comparison,  to  the  idea  of  a  universal  satis- 
faction, or  of  happiness.  "Their  mutual  limitations  (jhat  is, 
of  impulses),"  says  Hegel,  "on  one  hand,  proceed  from  a 
mixture  of  qualitative  and  quantitative  considerations:  on 
the  other  hand,  as  happiness  has  its  sole  affirmative  contents 
in  the  springs  of  action,  it  is  on  them  that  the  decision  turns, 
as  it  is  the  subjective  feeling  and  good  pleasure  which  must 
have  the  casting  vote  as  to  where  happiness  is  to  be  placed."  '° 
Thus  for  Hegel  the  domain  of  psychology  extends  as  far  as 
what  may  be  called  the  formal  freedom  of  the  individual 
seeking  happiness  in  the  satisfaction  of  the  wants  and  im- 
pulses :  and  Eudemonism  is  accordingly  assigned  its  syste- 
matic position  in  the  exposition  of  his  doctrine.  So  far, 
however,  no  reference  has  been  made  to  the  content  of  the 
will — the  intrinsic  worth  of  the  inclinations  and  impulses. 
Which  are  good,  and  which  bad  ?  As  soon  as  this  is  done, 
psychology  becomes  merged  in  ethics ;  the  treatment  passes 
from  the  conception  of  happiness  to  the  most  general  of  the 
entire  practical  sphere — the  conception  of  the  good. 

§  29.  For  Hegel,  man's  individuality  is  owing  to  the  rela- 
tion which  he  of  necessity  bears  to  nature  and  society.  It 
is  through  these  that  his  isolation  grows  defined.  The 
notion  of  individuality  is  to  bring  this  environment  into 
organic  unity:  th<j  person  is  to  become  the  truth  of  the 
natural  and  the  social.  The  will  is  the  man  as  activity — as 
self-determining.  Since,  then,  self-consciousness  is  first  of 
all  a  consciousness  of  the  self  as  opposed  to  the  world  of 
objects  or  nature,  and  especially,  as  Prof.  Watson  says,  to 
other  self  conscious  beings,  it  follows  that  the  satisfaction  of 
the  individual  self  can  not  be  found  in  self-centered  isolation 
from  nature  and  other  self-conscious  beings.  It  is  through 
its  relations  to  the  world  and  to  other  human  beings  that  the 
•"  Werke,  VII,  §  479  (7%<f  Philosophy  of  Mind,  Wallace's  Translation). 


247] 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


6i 


t: 


\ 


individual  consciousness  is  made  capable  of  a  universal  life, 
one  transcending  the  limits  of  mere  individuality.  It  is 
through  these  relations  that  the  universal  life  or  reason  must 
find  expression.  As  Principal  Caird  says,  "  Morality,  or  the 
moral  life,  may  be  described  as  the  renunciation  of  the 
private  or  exclusive  self  and  the  identification  of  our  life  with  \ 
an  ever-widening  sphere  of  spiritual  life  beyond  us,"" 
Thus  Hegel  provides  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  individual 
happiness  in  the  very  union  of  the  universal  and  particular. 
The  individual  in  living  for  his  family  or  for  the  state  '  at 
once  wills  the  good  and  finds  his  happiness  in  realizing  it.' 
Man  is  in  reality  a  member  of  the  state  before  he  is  a  man. 
Self-realization  is  man's  supreme  end,  but  is  possible  only 
through  other  selves ;  through  renunciation  of  the  individual 
self  in  favor  of  the  universal,  truer  self,  of  which  the  family, 
society,  the  state,  are  the  reflection.  "  It  must  further  be 
understood,"  says  Hegel,  "that  all  the  worth  which  the 
human  being  possesses,  all  spiritual  reality,  he  possesses 
only  through  the  state.  For  his  spiritual  reality  consists  in 
this,  that  his  own  essence — Reason — is  objectively  present 
to  him,  that  it  possesses  objective  immediate  existence  for 
him.  Thus  only  is  he  fully  conscious ;  thus  only  is  he  a  par- 
taker of  morality— of  a  just  and  moral,  social  and  political 
life.     The  state  is  the  Divine  Idea  as  it  exists  on  earth."  " 

Law  is  the  objectivity  of  spirit ;  volition  is  its  true  ioxm. 
Only  that  will  which  obeys  law  is  free.  For  Hegel  freedom 
comes  only  through  perfected  obedience.  Will  as  self-real- 
ization is  the  very  essence  of  the  individual.  Its  develop- 
ment from  its  natural  condition  to  that  of  formal  freedom  is 
a  continuous  growth  in  self-determination  and  self-expres- 
sion. The  mind  is  only  that  which  it  attains  by  its  own 
eflforts :  it  makes  itself  actually  what  it  was  always  potentially. 

"  The  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  263-4. 

^  The  Philosophy  of  History  (^^xt^,^,i^i). 


\ 


fl 


/' 


i 


■A 


62 


HEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[248 


The  realization  of  -ts  idea — freedom — "is  mediated  by  con- 
sciousness and  will."  As  nature  was  found  to  be  the  deposit 
of  reason,  so  human  institutions  are  the  product  of  the  free 
spirit  of  man  as  thinking  will  working  in  conformity  with  the 
Divine  immanence.  They  represent  the  stage  of  self-realiza- 
tion to  which  the  human  spirit  has  come.  This  ethical  sub- 
stance is  the  environment  into  which  the  individual  is  born 
to  develop  into  the  stature  of  the  perfv^ct  man.  So  that  be- 
yond the  mere  fact  of  physical  control  and  of  intellectual 
progress  through  habit,  language,  etc.,  which  Hegel  traces 
under  "  subjective  mind"  or  psychology,  there  is  that  of  the 
moral  life,  the  co-ordination  of  all  the  impulses  and  propen- 
sities into  a  system,  for  which  "  subjective  "  mind  has  been  a 
preparation.  The  moral  life  is  accomplished  by  the  self- 
presenting  subject,  transmuting  its  merely  individual  wants 
and  impulses  into  organic  elements  of  the  larger  self  to  be 
achieved  in  the  wider  life  of  the  social  organism. 

§  30.  For  Hegel,  accordingly,  it  is  impossible  to  explain 
the  nature  of  the  individual  without  having  regard  always  to 
the  varied  relations  of  the  family,  school,  society  and  state, 
into  which  he  is  born.  These  relations,  or  institutions,  are 
the  embodiments  so  far  made  by  man  of  his  conception  of 
his  capabilities ;  and  the  individual,  in  virtue  of  the  spiritual 
principle  of  reason  within  him,  reflects  upon  and  responds  to 
the  reason  without  him  embodied  in  these 


'M 


"  Relations  dear,  and  all  the  charities 
Of  father,  son  and  brother."" 

Hegel's  conception  is  altogether  at  variance  with  the  indi- 
vidualist theory  of  society.  All  the  instincts  and  desires  by 
which  the  individual  is  actuated  pre-suppoSe  some  kind  of 
organized  society,  of  family,  clan  or  tribe.  The  holding  of 
property,  for  example,   one  of  the  earliest  steps  in  social 

^^  Paradise  Losl,  Bk.  IV. 


.*.? 


t^amM^^.M^ 


M^*>**.i«  mm^ 


I. 


249]  HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  ^^ 

organization,  implies  protection  of  it  for  the  individual.  It 
is  thus  one  stage  in  the  evolution  of  the  idea  of  a  common 
good. 

If  we  restrict  the  term  to  its  ordinary  significance,  it  is 
true  that  Hegel  never  wrote  a  separate  treatise  on  ethics. 
This  fact,  however,  is  but  another  instance  of  his  dislike  of 
abstraction.  For  him  the  living  personality  of  man  is  a 
unit — "  all  of  one  piece,"  and  in  so  far,  and  in  whatever  way 
man  seeks  to  realize  his  capabilities,  he  is  ethical.  The 
moral  or  ethical  is  for  Hegel  the  sphere  of  freedom ;  what- 
ever is  moral  is  essentially  free,  and  whatever  is  free  is 
moral.  The  development  from  soul  to  mind  is  a  growth  in 
freedom — it  is  the  mind  acting  more  and  more  from  itself 
as  centre.  We  may  say,  therefore,  that  the  entire  Philos- 
ophy of  Mind  is  a  treatise  on  ethics.  The  second  part  of 
the  Philosophy  of  Mind,  "  Objective  "  Mind,  is  more  fully 
elaborated  in  a  separate  treatise,  the  "  Philosophic  des 
Rechts,"  '♦  which  shows  us  the  mind  in  its  freedom  as  think- 
ing will  incarnating  itself  in  the  ethical  substance — the  laws, 
customs,  morals,  and  social  life  of  the  world.  Just  as  in  the 
realm  of  knowledge,  so  in  that  of  practice,  the  world,  which 
at  first  is  a  "  foreign"  other,  a  natural  world,  is  transformed 
into  a  social  and  political  world  by  man  as  an  intelligent 
and  voHtional  being;  and  it  is  this  scientific  evolution  of 
will,  or  of  man  as  thinking  will,  which  is,  according  to 
Hegel,  alone  capable  of  yielding  a  philosophy  of  law,  rights 
and  duties. 

The  ideal,  then,  for  Hegel  is  not  only  personal,  it  is  also 
social.  As  was  noted  above,  self  consciousness  is  the  pri- 
mary and  fundamental  fact  of  human  nature.  It  is  an 
organic,  spiritual  unity.     It  transcends  the  antithesis  of  sub- 

"  Tke  Philosophy  of  Rights  or  Law,  published  by  Hegel  in  1821,  Werke,  VIII. 
The  Philosophy  of  Miud,  (the  third  part  of  the  Encyclopoedia),  Werke,  VII,  was 
published  in  181 7.  « 


), 


1^1 


54  HEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  [250 

ject  and  object,  mind  and  matter.  The  object  cannot  be — 
as  Descartes  and  so  many  others  in  the  history  of  philosophy 
abstractly  conceived  it — the  absolute  antithesis  of  subject, 
nor  matter  of  mind,  but  their  disparateness  is  tran- 
scended in  self-consciousness  or  reason.  We  can  thus  see 
what  answer  Hegel  would  give  to  an  objector  denying  that, 
while  the  ideal  is  personal,  it  is  also  social.  "  Mr.  Kidd  is 
therefore  right,"  says  D'Arcy,  "  when,  in  his  Social  Evolu- 
tion, he  describes  reason  as  essentially  anti-social.  Why 
should  the  individual  subordinate  his  private  interests  to  the 
interests  of  the  community  ?  Why  should  he  deny  himself 
pleasure  that  others  may  benefit?  No  purely  reasonable 
answer  can  be  given  to  these  questions.  If  they  are  to  be 
answered  at  all,  the  answer  must,  to  some  extent  at  all 
events,  transcend  reason,  or,  as  Mr.  Kidd  puts  it,  be  ultra- 
rational.  Self,  like  a  despot,  dominates  the  whole  realm  of 
experience,  and,  unless  mastered  by  some  superior  principle, 
must  wage  unceasing  war  against  all  who  would  pretend  to 
equal  authority."  '^ 

Hegel  would  simply  say  "  without  object  there  is  no  sub- 
ject ;  without  nature,  no  spirit ;  without  necessity,  no  free- 
dom ;  without  society,  no  persons  as  we  know  them."  They 
are  but  complementary  sides  of  one  fact.  It  is  strange  how 
writers  in  the  interests  of  religion  still  persist  in  declaring  for 
the  ultra-rational  "  and  some  superior  principle."  "  God 
is  not  wisely  trusted,"  wrote  T.  H.  Green  in  the  spirit  of 
Hegel,  "  when  declared  unintelligible.  God  is  forever 
Reason  ;  and  His  communication,  His  revelation,  is  Reason  ; 
not,  however,  abstract  reason,  but  reason  as  taking  a  body 
from,  and  giving  life  to,  the  whole  system  of  experience 
which  makes  the  history  of  man.  The  revelation,  therefore, 
is  not  made  in  a  day,  or  a  generation,  or  a  century.  The 
divine  mind  touches,  modifies,  becomes  the  mind  of  man, 

"  Short  Study  of  Ethics,  pp.  58-9. 


I  I  «1    1 1  pil  [fa 


250 


HECEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


65 


through  a  process  of  which  mere  intellectual  conception  is 
only  the  beginning,  but  of  which  the  gradu; »  complement  is 
an  unexhausted  series  of  spiritual  discipline  through  all  the 
agencies  of  social  life."'* 

§  31.  Parallel  with  what  may  be  called  the  metaphysical 
development  from  Kant  to  Hegel,  which  has  been  so  sugges- 
tively traced  by  Prof,  Seth,  there  was  the  ethical  develop- 
ment ;  which  may  be  briefly  characterized  as  a  development 
from  an  abstract  to  a  concrete,  and  therefore  living  and 
practicable  morality.  For  Kant,  the  essence  of  morality  is, 
to  use  the  phrase  of  Mr.  Bradley  in  his  Ethical  Studies, 
"  Duty  for  Duty's  sake."  The  central  fact  of  the  moral  life 
is  for  Hegel,  "  My  station  and  its  duties."  A  few  remarks 
may  here  be  made  on  Kant's  doctrine,  which  may  perhaps 
serve  to  bring  into  clearer  light  the  standpoint  of  Hegel. 

Kant's  theory  of  knowledge,  in  its  fundamental  conception, 
is  that  existence,  that  is,  all  knowable  existence,  is  existence 
for  a  self ;  that  is,  if  there  is  one  intelligible  world  there  can 
be  made  no  absolute  separation  between  subject  and  ©bject, 
the  spiritual  and  natural.  The  categories  are  not  to  be  re- 
garded as  innate  ideas  imposed  by  the  mind  on  an  alien 
matter.  Form  must  ever  be  the  immanent  life  of  matter. 
Except  in  abstraction  they  cannot  exist  apart.  It  is  the 
dualism  of  nature  and  spirit,  necessity  and  freedom,  which 
Kant  sought  to  remove.  How  far  he  was  successful  and  how 
far  he  remained  in  bondage  to  the  view  he  was  combatting, 
has  been  briefly  indicated  in  a  previous  chapter. 

When  we  turn  with  Kant  to  the  sphere  of  the  practical 
reason,  it  will  be  found  that  there  is  here  a  corresponding 
dualism.  His  entire  ethical  theory  rests  on  the  fundamental 
fact  of  the  moral  law,  spontaneously  imposed  011  the  will  by 
reason  and  binding  on  all  rational  beings.  Its  cliaracteristic 
feature  is  authority,  and  commands   a  man  to  do  what  is 

J8  ifTorJis,  Vol.  III.,  p.  239. 


/' 


66 


HEGEUS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[252 
Of   the  inclinations 


right  irrespective  of  his  inclinations. 
Kant  writes :  "  It  must  be  the  universal  wish  of  every 
rational  being  to  be  wholly  free  from  them."  ''  Here  is  the 
dualism  of  the  natural  and  the  spiritual  still  hovering  over  the 
mind  of  Kant — a  dualism  between  the  pure  idea  of  duty  and 
empirical  instigation  of  pleasure.  His  moral  purism,  accord- 
ingly, merges  into  rigorism,  and  tends  to  the  view  that  duty 
can  be  duty  only  when  it  is  reluctantly  performed.  More- 
over, on  Kant's  own  theory  of  knowledge  for  the  categories 
there  is  required  a  sensuous  content,  "  without  it  they  are 
empty."  "  How,"  we  may  ask,  "  is  volition,  action  accord- 
ing to  the  pure  idea  of  duty,  conceivable  apart  from  individ- 
ual appetites  and  desires?"  The  will  and  the  thinking,  feel- 
ing and  desiring  self  cannot  be  conceived  as  thus  externally 
related  to  each  other.  For  Hegel  the  will  is  the  self.  In  all 
desire  it  is  the  self  seeking  its  expression — its  realization ; 
and  self-realization  cannot  be  accomplished  through  the  an- 
nihilation of  an  integral  part  of  its  own  nature,  feeling  and 
desire. 

Kant,  however,  was  always  building  wiser  than  he  knew, 
and  was  in  reality  basing  his  doctrine  on  a  deeper  truth 
which  could  be  fully  brought  to  light  by  those  who  had  re- 
gard to  the  spirit  rathe*-  than  to  the  letter  of  his  moral 
theory.  Kant  shows  us^  ^Aristotle  had  caught  sight  of  the 
same  distinction)  that  to  act  from  the  consciousness  of  law 
is  a  thing  quite  dififerent  from  acting  as  subject  to  law.  To 
act  from  a  consciousness  of  law  is  to  will,  that  is,  to  be  free. 
Yet  man  is  a  unit,  an  organic  unity,  and  in  his  desires,  in- 
clinations, impulses,  must  be  found  the  material  of  the  ideals 
and  laws  which  reason  proposes.  It  was  Hegel  who  first 
clearly  perceived  the  unity  and  continuity  of  mind.  Kant 
presents  us  with  two  great  forms,  or  principles  of  action,  in 
accordance  with  which  we  may  seek  the  fulfilment  of  our 

"  Theory  of  Ethics  (Abbott's  translation),  3d  ed.,  p.  46. 


253] 


HEGEDS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


67 


knew, 

truth 

lad  re- 

ral 

f  the 

f  law 

To 

free. 

s,  in- 

Sdeals 

first 

iKant 

)n,  in 

our 


rational  nature,  (i)  "Treat  humanity  always  as  an  end, 
never  as  a  means,"  Thus  Kant  conceives  man  as  a  person 
endowed  with  a  will  through  which  he  may  seek  self-realiza- 
tion. The  conception  is  still  abstract  if  the  self  be  separated 
from  all  particular  desires.  (2)  The  second  amounts  to 
this,  "  Whatever  the  special  courses  of  conduct  be  in  which 
you  seek  the  fulfilment  of  your  rational  nature,  these  must 
be  the  same  for  all  men."  Here  Kant  approaches  Hegel's 
point  of  view,  the  idea,  namely,  of  humanity  as  a  self-con- 
scious organism,  the  individual  members  of  which  are  at 
once  ends  and  means — the  truth  of  the  universal  and  the 
particular;  and  man  in  submitting  himself  to  the  universal 
law  of  reason  is  in  reality  unfolding  his  own  rational  nature. 
The  idea  of  a  social  organism,  however,  remained  for  Kant 
merely  an  ideal,  and  the  conception  of  such  an  organism 
must  ever  remain  a  mere  idea  if  man  is  a  being  in  whom 
there  is  an  irreconcileable  dualism  of  reason  and  desire. 

The  initial  difficulty  with  Kant  is  his  conception  that  all 
desire  is  for  pleasure.  For  Hegel,  as  Prof.  Dewey  remarks 
in  another  connection,  "the  spiritualizing  of  the  impulse  is 
organizing  it  so  that  it  becomes  one  factor  in  action."'*  The 
law  is  the  law  of  the  desires  themselves :  through  it  they  are 
harmonized  and  made  instrumental  to  the  realization  of  the 
self  which  has  them.  Kant  tells  us  to  act  as  though  mem- 
bers of  a  social  organism.  But  such  an  organism  does  not 
exist.  For  Kant  morality  is  not,  nor  will  it  ever  be,  realized 
in  the  community.  Man  must  seek  to  realize  himself  not  in 
any  existing  community,  or  any  that  ever  will  exist,  but,  as 
Prof.  Watson  says,  "  in  an  intelligible  world  which  exists  for 
him  only  as  an  unrealizable  ideal."  "^ 

§  32.  Herein  Hegel's  doctrine  is  the  direct  antithesis  of 
Kant's.     The  end  of  action  or  the  good  for  Hegel  is  the 

"  Elements  of  Ethics,  p.  24. 

"  Comte,  Mill  and  Spencer,  p.  230. 


\ 


68 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[254 


I 


/I 


realized  will,  that  is,  the  developed  self;  "the  satisfaction  of 
desires  according  to  law,"  that  is,  the  universal  element 
which  refection  reveals.  Morality  has  been  ever  realizing 
itself  in  the  world — this  is  the  conception  of  Hegel.  The 
rational  is  in  some  sense  the  real.  Instead  of  following 
Kant's  dualism  of  the  abstract  universal  lav/  or  Imperative 
and  the  actual  world,  Hegel  maintains  that  the  moral  law 
has  become  incarnated  in  the  ethical  life  of  humanity. 
"  The  Word  has  become  flesh  and  dwells  among  us."  The 
City  of  God  must  be  found  in  the  everlasting  Real.  The 
state  so  far  is  not  completely  rational,  it  is  true;  yet  the 
ideal,  the  completely  rational,  must  be  realized  in  part.  It 
m„ay  be  far  from  "the  parliament  of  man"  and  "  the  federa- 
tion of  the  world;"  yet  this  can  come,  according  to  Hegel, 
only  by  transforming,  not  supplanting,  that  which  already 
exists — the  further  spiritualization  of  what  we  already 
possess.  Human  institutions  are  thus,  in  Schleiermacher's 
phrase,  "an  ethical  heritage  ;"  and  man's  education  is  simply 
a  growing  conformity  of  his  reason — of  his  conscience — with 
the  reason — the  conscience  of  his  environment.  His  en- 
vironment is  the  concrete  realization  by  humanity  of  its  idea 
of  the  good. 

"The  consciousness  of  a  social  good,  which  is  at  the  same 
time  the  true  good  of  the  individual,  a  consciousness  which 
is  implied  even  in  savage  life,  is  the  moving  principle  in  the 
whole  evolution  of  morality.  What  holds  human  beings 
together  in  society  is  this  idea  of  a  good  higher  than  merely 
individual  good.  Every  form  of  social  organization  rests 
upon  this  tacit  recognition  of  a  higher  good  that  is  realized 
in  the  union  of  oneself  with  others.  Suppose  this  entirely 
absent,  and  the  moral  consciousness  would  be  impossible. 
For  the  moral  consciousness  always  involves  the  recognition 
of  a  higher  than  individual  good,  and,  because  this  higher 
good  is  partially  realized  in  social  laws  and  institutions,  the 


255] 


HEGEUS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


69 


f 


m 


w 


individual  feels  himself  constrained  by  his  reason  to  submit 
to  it.  It  is  by  reflection  upon  this  good,  as  realized  in  out- 
ward laws  and  institutions,  that  the  individual  becomes  con-i 
scious  of  moral  law.  At  first,  law  seems  to  be  externally 
imposed,  but  the  individual  in  reflecting  upon  it  recoj^nizes 
that  the  real  force  of  the  law  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  an  ex- 
pression of  his  higher  self.  It  is  true  that  in  awakening  to 
the  consciousness  of  moral  law  as  deriving  its  authority  from 
reason,  the  individual  at  first  asserts  that  custom  and  exter- 
nal law  have  no  authority  over  him ;  that  the  sole  authority 
he  can  rationally  obey  is  the  law  of  his  own  reason.  But 
this  is  only  one  side  of  the  truth ;  the  other  side  is,  that  in 
custom  and  law  there  already  is  realized  the  law  of  reason. 
No  doubt,  society  at  any  time  is  only  a  partial  realization  of 
the  law  of  reason,  and,  therefore,  no  form  of  society  is  final; 
but  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  only  in  so  far  as  morality 
realizes  itself  in  society  can  it  be  realized  at  all."=°  Perhaps 
no  better  summary  of  Hegel's  ethical  doctrine  can  be  given 
than  in  these  words  of  Prof.  Watson,  which  of  course  aie 
used  by  him  in  another  connection. 

In  a  previous  chapter  it  was  found  that  the  Absolute  for 
Hegel  is  the  Eternal  Spirit  thinking  itself  in  nature  and  his- 
tory. This  is  the  metaphysics  which  Hegel  furnishes  us  of 
man's  ethical  life.  Here  also  we  have  his  theory  of  obliga- 
tion. With  Kant  the  Categorical  Imperative  was  essentially 
subjective.  With  Hegel,  there  can  be  no  abstract  i°]f-reali- 
zation.  Apart  from  environment,  capacity  must  be  merely 
an  abstraction.  No  man's  morality  and  religion  arise  alto- 
gether in  the  bosom  of  his  own  being.  The  antenna  of  the 
individual  soul  respond  to  the  moral  and  religious  notions  of 
I  the  spiritual  community  into  which  it  is  born.     Thus  the 


state  in  all  its  fullness  of  relations  exists  for  the  realization 
of  the  human  spirit— this  is  the  essence  of  Hegel's  ethical 

i  ■"'  ComU,  Mill  anil  Spencer,  pp.  229,  230. 


.■lI' 


s/ 


,-/ 


^ 


70 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[256 


// 


teaching.  Ethical  man,  is  man  as  realized  in  human  institu- 
tions. Man  is  free  simply  because  he  cannot  do  what  he  likes. 
§  33.  Hegel  treats  the  subject  of  ethics  under  the  three 
great  divisions:  (i)  Abstract  Right;  (2)  Morality  and 
(3)  what  he  calls  Sittlichkeit,  the  integration  of  the  other 
two.  We  may  designate  them  (i)  Abstract  Right — Law; 
(2)  Abstract  Duty — Morality:  (3)  The  Ethical  Life.  One 
is  not  necessarily  earlier  in  time  than  the  others.  In  reality, 
they  are  members  of  one  concrete  whole — the  ethical  life  of 
an  individual.  There  is  also,  however,  an  historical  justifica- 
tion for  Hegel's  treatment.  Before  the  time  of  Socrates  it 
may  be  said  that  the  moral  life  was  that  of  the  law-obeying 
citizen.  With  Socrates  came  the  transition  from  abstract 
law  to  subjective  morality ;  and  with  Christianity  came  the 
integration  of  the  two  preceding  phases.  "  It  was  only  after 
Christianity  that  the  individual,  and  not  isolatedly,  but  in 
connection  with  the  whole  community,  came  to  know  the 
full  import  of  what  is  named  moral  experience.  Christianity  it 
was  that  wrought  as  a  purifying  ferment  in  the  souls  of  men, 
abasing  all  the  greeds  of  sense,  shaming  the  lusts  and  prides 
and  vanities  of  self,  awakening  repentance,  chastening  the 
heart,  and  leading  the  soul  generally  into  candor,  and  sim- 
plicity, and  humility,  and  love."  *'  The  historical  process  is 
repeated  in  the  individual  life.  It  is  obedience  to  an  exter- 
nal law  at  first  (abstract  Right)  ;  with  reflection  comes  the 
storm  and  stress ;  awakening  reason  asserts  that  "  custom 
and  external  law  have  no  authority  over  the  individual ;  he 
must  obey  only  his  own  reason,  conscience."  Gradually  the 
other  side  of  the  truth  comes  into  view,  "  that  in  custom  and 
law  there  already  is  realized  the  law  of  reason."  Each  stage 
becomes  more  concrete  than  the  preceding ;  and  his  is  the 
ethical  life  whose  whole  nature  is  permeated  by  the  life  and 
spiritual  atmosphere  of  his  country. 

*'  Stirling,  Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  Law,  p.  34. 


"f 


CHAPTER  VI 


LAW 


II 


4 


f 


Abstract  Right 

§  34.  The  sphere  for  the  realization  of  man's  free  will 
Hegel  designates  "Objective  Mind."  It  is  the  sphere  of 
man's  devotion  to  .^e  common  good.  The  province  of 
Law  or  Right  is  the  first  stage  in  the  evolution  of  personality. 
In  the  first  instance  the  term,  of  course,  must  be  taken  in  a 
comprehensive  senye — not  as  laws  consciously  imposed  by  a 
law-giver — nor  yet  in  the  sense  of  moral  right ;  but  merely 
in  the  sense  of  unu'  irmity  and  equality,  as  the  actual  body 
of  all  the  conditions  of  freedom;  i.  e.,  "of  laws,  or  rights, 
which  express  definite  and  stereotyped  modes  of  behaviour.'" 
A  right  can  be  constituted  only  by  the  action  of  a  free  sub- 
stantial will.  Abstract  right  or  Law  forms  the  foundation 
merely  for  the  more  living  morality  to  be  built  upon  it. 

§  35.  It  follows  at  once  'rom  Hegel's  general  conception 
that  he  could  make  no  distinction  between  natural  and  posi- 
tive rights.  The  fundamental  law  of  rights,  according  to 
Hegel,  is,  "Be  a  person,  and  respect  others  as  persons."" 
"By  the  absolute  rights  of  individuals  we  mean  those  which 
are  so  in  their  primary  and  strictest  sense,  such  as  would  be- 
long to  their  persons  merely  in  a  state  of  nature,  and  which 
e  ery  man  is  entitled  to  enjoy,  whether  out  of  society  or  in 
it.    3     "The  phrase  '  Law  of  Nature,'  or  Natural  Right,"  says 

'  Wallace,  Introduction  to  Hegel's  Philosophy  of  Mind,  p.  clxxxix. 
»  Werke  VIII,  Philosophie  des  Kechts,  §  36  (translated  by  Sterrett). 
'  Blackstone,  Commentaries,  i,  123. 
257]  ^' 


\ 


72 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[258 


Hegel,  "  in  use  for  the  philosophy  of  law,  involves  the  am- 
biguity that  it  may  mean  either  right  as  something  existing 
ready-formed  in  nature,  or  right  as  governed  by  the  nature 
of  things,  i.  e.,  by  the  notion.  The  former  used  to  be  the 
common  meaning,  accompanied  with  the  fiction  of  a  state  of 
nature,  in  which  the  law  of  nature  should  hold  sway ;  whereas 
the  social  and  political  state  rather  required  and  implied  a 
restriction  of  liberty  and  a  sacrifice  of  natural  rights.  The 
real  fact  is  that  the  whole  law  and  its  every  article  are  based 
on  free  personality  alone — on  self-determination  or  autonomy* 
which  is  the  very  contrary  of  determination  by  nature.  The 
law  of  nature — strictly  so-called — is  for  that  reason  the  pre- 
dominance of  the  strong  and  the  reign  of  force,  and  a  state 
of  nature  a  state  of  violence  and  wrong,  of  which  nothing 
truer  can  be  said  than  that  one  ought  to  depart  from  it. 
The  social  state,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  condition  in 
which  alone  right  has  its  actuality ;  what  is  to  be  restricted 
and  sacrificed  is  just  the  wilfulness  and  violence  of  the  state 
of  nature."  + 

§  36.  Thus  for  Hegel  the  subject  of  rights  is  the  person. 
But  the  person  who  is  the  subject  of  abstract  right  is  not  the 
person  as  developed  in  intellectual  and  ethical  relations.  It 
is  primarily,  as  it  were,  the  person  in  an  excluding  relation 
to  others,  and  who  represents  the  first  phase  of  realizing 
will — in  whom  no  humaneness  is  present,  with  no  positive 
duties,  but  on  whom  commands  are  laid,  and  who  is  capable 
of  entering  into  any  of  the  relations  presented  to  him  in  his 
environment.  A  person,  conceived  in  this  abstract  way, 
does  not  exist,  since  to  be  real,  i.  e.,  constituted  a  person,  it 
must  be  given  some  measure  of  objective  reality.  It  is 
through  the  will,  which,  as  has  been  indicated  above,  is  the 
constitutive  clement  of  the  person,  that  there  is  given  to  the 
person  the  embodiment  necessary  to  its  completeness.     It  is 

*  Werke,  VII,  §  502  (^The  Philosophy  of  Mind,  Wallace's  Translation). 


1 


i 


[258 


259] 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


n 


4 


through  the  activity  of  the  will,  then,  that  the  world  of 
nature  is  posited  as  belonging  to  the  person.  The  sphere  of 
abstract  right  or  law  will  thus  include  whatever  is  appropri- 
ated by  the  act  of  will.  Hegel  distinguishes  three  forms  of 
this  externalization  of  the  will: 

(a)  Property  is  the  primary  form  in  which  personality  as 
self-relating  free-will  renders  itself  objectively  real. 

(^)  Contract  involves  a  common  will  and  the  maintenance 
of  rights  through  the  union  of  two  or  more  wills  respecting 
the  institution  and  transference  of  property. 

(f )  Injustice  and  crime — the  sphere  of  the  particular  will 
in  opposition  to  itself  as  absolute  or  universal  v/ill. 

§  37.  "  There  is  nothing,"  says  Blackstone,  "  which  so 
generally  strikes  the  imagination,  and  engages  the  afTections 
of  mankind,  as  the  right  of  property,  or  that  sole  and  des- 
potic dominion  which  one  man  claims  and  exercises  over 
the  external  things  of  the  world,  in  total  exclusion  of  the 
right  of  any  other  individual  in  the  universe.  And  yet,  there 
are  very  few  that  will  give  themselves  the  trouble  to  con- 
sider the  original  and  foundation  of  this  right These 

enquiries,  it  must  be  owned,  would  be  useless  and  even 
troublesome  in  common  life.  It  is  well  if  the  mass  of  man- 
kind will  obey  the  laws  when  made,  without  scrutinizing  toa 
nicely  into  the  reason  of  making  them." 

In  the  discussions  over  economic  problems  at  the  present 
time,  the  questions  involved  in  the  theory  of  property  are 
perhaps  the  most  disturbing.  The  difficulties  of  the  political 
order  which  have  for  so  long  threatened  to  correct,  or  rather 
to  annihilate  the  institutions  of  the  past  have,  in  part  at 
least,  been  replaced  by  the  still  graver  difficulties  of  the 
social  order.  The  equality  of  political  with  the  inequality  of 
social  conditions  is  the  problem  with  which  the  present  gen- 
eration has  to  deal.  We  are  told  by  Mr.  Henry  George  and 
others  that  all  property  is  the  result  of  labor ;  yet  their  name 


ir 


74 


I/EGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[260 


is  legion  who  labor  and  who  possess  no  property ;  and  there 
is  perhaps  an  increasing  number  who,  while  ignorant  of  what 
labor  means,  nevertheless  live  a  life  of  ease  and  luxury.  It 
is,  perhaps,  not  too  much  to  say  that  property  is  becoming 
more  and  more  concentrated,  and  the  contrast  between  the 
rich  and  the  poor  more  and  more  accentuated.  "  At  Rome, 
as  in  Greece,"  says  Laveleye,  "  inequality,  after  stifling  lib- 
erty, destroyed  the  state  itself.''^ 

The  idea  of  property  is  a  primary  and  fundamental  one, 
and  underlies  most  of  our  social  and  economic  difficulties. 
It  would  thus  seem  to  be  something  inherent  in  the  very 
nature  of  man.  It  has  been  variously  discussed  by  the 
philosopher,  the  economist,  and  the  social  reformer.  In  the 
notion  "  right  of  property"  there  are  two  elements  to  be 
taken  into  account  by  any  theory  attempting  an  explana- 
tion of  the  nature  and  origin  of  property.  There  is  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  social  element.  Property  is  a  creation  of 
some  form  of  society,  whether  the  society  consists  in  the 
horde,  clan,  tribe,  or  civilized  nation.  Man,  in  so  far  as  he 
is  a  property-holder,  is  a  member  of  some  form  of  social 
group.  "  We  at  length  know  something,"  says  Maine,  "  con- 
cerning the  beginnings  of  the  great  institution  of  property  in 
land.  The  collective  ownership  of  the  soil  by  groups  of 
men  either  in  fact  united  by  blood  relationship,  or  believing 
or  assuming  that  they  are  so  united,  is  now  entitled  to  rank 
as  an  ascertained  primitive  phenomenon,  once  universally 
characterizing  those  communities  of  mankind  between  whose 
civilization  and  our  own  there  is  any  distinct  connection  or 
analogy."  ^  And  Lafargue  writes :  "  Mankind  underwent 
a  long  and  painful  process  of  development  before  arriving  at 
private  property  in  land." ' 

^Primitive  Property  (translated  by  Marriott).     Preface  to  original  edition, 

p.  XXX. 

^  Early  History  of  Institutions^  p.  1-2.  '  Evolution  of  Property,  p.  35. 


I 


261]  IIEGEVS  DOCTRTNE  OF  THE   WILL  mm 

Merely  to  trace  the  changing  phases  of  any  reality  does 
not  in  itself  explain  the  reality.  "  Evolution  is  not  a  force, 
but  a  process ;  not  a  cause,  but  a  law."  ^  The  mode  in 
which  property  has  been  appropriated,  as  well  as  the  objects 
appropriated,  may  vary  at  dififerent  times  and  in  different 
societies.  Doubtless  in  the  initial  stages  of  social  progress 
the  notion  of  property  existed  merely  in  an  indistinct,  yet 
real  sense  of  unity  and  consequent  feeling  of  co-ownership  by 
the  individuals  composing  the  horde,  family,  clan  or  tribe. 
In  the  early  nomadic  life,  co-ownership  would  be  felt  in 
whatever  articles  were  carried  from  place  to  place.  When 
the  tribe  came  to  possess  a  settled  abode  (occasioned  by 
growth  in  numbers  or  through  the  appearance  of  other 
tribes)  landed  property  began  to  develop  into  the  various 
forms  of  tribal  ownership  so  adequately  traced  by  Maine, 
Laveleye  and  Lafargue, 

Roman  jurisprudence,  on  which  our  modern  jurispru- 
dence is  professedly  based,  founds  the  right  of  property 
principally  on  the  fact  of  occupancy  of  a  res  niilliiis.  Ac- 
cording to  this  theory  the  possession  of  a  particular  object 
or  piece  of  ground  would  be  co-extensive  with  the  power  to 
retain  it.  The  right  of  appropriation  would  simply  be  the 
right  of  the  strongest. 

Hobbes'  theory  of  property  follows  as  a  direct  conse- 
quence from  his  theory  of  the  state.  There  is  no  right  of 
property  as  against  the  sovereign  power.  In  insisting  on  the 
importance  of  the  individual,  though  he  makes  it  too  severely 
prominent,  Hobbes  did  good  service  for  the  future.  Locke, 
with  individualism  still  as  his  starting-point,  accepts  the 
notion  of  a  contract  or  convention,  but  finds  the  foundation 
of  property  in  labor.  It  is  my  labor  bestowed  on  objects 
which  makes  them  my  property.  The  chief  end  of  civil 
society  is  the  preservation  of  the  property  so  constituted.' 

•Morley,  On  Compromise,  p.  210.  •  Toleration,  (Works,  II). 


% 


76 


HEG EDS  DOCTRINE  OF  :'HE  WILL 


[262 


In  making  labor  the  principle  of  the  ight  of  property,  Locke 
pointed  out  the  clement  which  the  i^'aneral  mind  recognizes 
as  constitutive  of  that  right.  Yet  here  a  difficulty  is  raised^ 
namely,  why  is  it  that  possession  is  not  always  held  by 
labor,  and  why  does  the  laborer  not  always  possess  prop- 
erty? The  right  of  labor,  moreover,  presupposes  that  the 
use  of  the  materials  has  been  conceded.  Society  must  have 
some  share  in  every  product  of  labor.  The  difficulty,  how- 
ever, must  not  obscure  the  element  of  truth  in  Locke's  view. 
The  view  itself  represents  the  distinctively  British  or 
economic  standpoint  regarding  the  right  of  property. 

The  result  of  German  discussion  was  to  direct  attention  to 
the  ideal  or  personal  side  of  property,  in  contrast  to  its. 
purely  material  value.  Kant  regarded  it  as  one  of  the  in- 
alienable rights  of  personality,  and  thus  invested  it  with  a 
distinctly  moral  character.  Kant  and  Fichte,  however,  re- 
gard the  state  merely  as  an  institution  which  by  physical 
power  lends  sanction  to  the  law.  For  Fichte  the  ultimate 
foundation  of  property  is  in  an  act  of  will  to  which  bodily 
action  has  given  effect.  He  believed  the  time  was  coming 
when  "property  will  lose  its  exclusively  private  character 
and  become  a  social  institution."  In  general,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  English  view  the  right  in  its  objective,  utilitarian  or 
economic  aspect;  whereas  the  Germans  lay  the  emphasis 
rather  on  the  subjective  requirements  of  personality.  It 
would  seem  that  an  adequate  theory  would  combine  the  sub- 
jective and  objective  points  of  view.  As  Prof.  Newcomb 
says :  "  The  respect  for  property  is  greater  to-day  because 
the  right  is  more  rationally  defined  and  exercised."  " 

Almost  invariably  in  theories  of  property  two  questions 

are  confused,  which,  in  an  analytic  discussion  of  the  problem, 

should  be  kept  separate.     Not  that  process  can  in  any  stage 

be  separated  from  the  product,  yet  for  purposes  of  examin- 

'"  Political  Science  Quarterly,  Vol.  I. 


263]  HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  •» 

ation  an  ideal  separation  must  be  made,  (i)  There  is  first 
the  historical  question,  In  what  way,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
have  men  appropriated  property?  This  side  has  perhaps 
been  given  an  undue  emphasis  in  modern  times  through 
the  prevailing  influence  of  the  historical  method  of  enquiry. 
(2)  Granting,  in  the  second  place,  the  appropriation,  how 
has  the  notion  of  right  come  to  be  associated  with  it? 
"  Why  it  was,"  says  Maine,  "  that  lapse  of  time  created  a 
sentiment  of  respect  for  his  possession — which  is  the  exact 
source  of  the  universal  reverence  of  mankind  for  that  which 
has  for  a  long  period  de  facto  existed — are  questions  really 
deserving  the  profoundest  examination,  but  lying  far  be- 
yond the  boundary  of  our  present  enquiries."  "  But  it  is 
just  the  answer  to  this  question  which  is  fundamental  to  any 
theory  of  the  "  right "  of  property. 

The  notion  "  right  of  property  "  involves  at  least  ( i )  the 
idea  of  permanence,  and   (2)   that  the  property-holder  is 
secured  in  his  right  so  long  as  he  wills  to  keep  it.     There 
is  <:hus  involved  in  the  right  an  individual  and  a  social  ele- 
ment.    Property  as  an  institution  is  contemporaneous  with 
society,  and  Laveleye  appears  to  take  an  extreme  position 
when  he  asserts  that  "  at  the  present  day  property  has  been 
deprived   of  all  social  character.  ...  It  is  a  privilege  sub- 
ject to  no  fetters,  no  reservation,  and  no  obligation,  which 
seems  to  have  no  other  end  than  the  well-being  of  the  indi- 
vidual."    (i)  There  is  first  the  individual  element,  and  il^is 
is  founded  in  the  will  of  the  person.     The  individual  has  an 
idea  of  a  self-satisfaction,  of  a  good  to  be  reah"zed ;   and  ap- 
propriation is  its  expression.     Appropriation  as  the  expres- 
sion of  will  is  thus  the  initial  condition  of  the  existence  of 
property.     It  is    not,   however,    the   whole   process.     If    it 
were,  the  lower  animals  could  be  said  to  have  the  proprie- 
tary sentiment.     The  question  rather  is,  Why  is  it  that  other 

"  Ancient  Law,  p.  24S. 


78 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRLVE  Of  THE   WILL 


[264 


.      i 


individuals  possessed  of  similar  needs  and  desires  leave  the 
appropriating  individual  in  undisturbed  possession?  The 
social  element  must  in  some  way  be  accounted  for.  (2) 
"Man  is  by  nature  a  political  animal,"  says  Aristotle. 
Property  is  a  social  institution  in  primitiv"  as  well  as  in 
modern  times.  In  the  appropriation  by  the  indi\  idual  there 
is  involved  the  social  element,  namely,  the  recognition  by 
the  individual  of  the  right  of  appropriation  as  belonging  to 
other  individuals,  and  the  recognition  by  the  latter  of  a 
similar  right  of  the  individual  to  the  appropriated  objects  as 
the  permanent  medium  for  the  expression  of  his  wants  and 
desires.  Thus,  in  reality,  in  the  right  to  labor  is  pre-sup- 
posed  the  right  to  certain  materials.  Without  a  universal 
element  in  the  individual  mind,  social  union  is  inconceivable. 
If  the  individual  is  to  be  conceived  atomistically,  to  speak  of 
a  "right  of  property"  is  ti'iintelligible.  "Where  there  is  no 
recognition  of  a  common  lod  there  can  be  no  right  in  any 
other  sense  than  power."  '^  The  ground  of  property  can 
only  lie  in  the  recognition  by  the  members  of  any  social 
group  of  a  common  good ;  a  good,  recognized,  it  may  be, 
dimly,  yet  which  is  in  some  way  immanent  and  operative  in 
the  minds  of  the  individuals  composing  a  horde,  family, 
clan,  tribe,  society  or  state ;  and  only  on  this  basis — if  we 
are  to  mean  anything  by  the  word — can  we  speak  of  a  right 
of  property,  or  indeed  of  a  right  or  duty  of  any  kind. 

§  38.  Since  it  is  chiefly  Hegel's  view  of  property  which 
has  been  embodied  in  the  preceding  section,  a  summary  of 
his  doctrine  will  be  sufficent.  (i)  For  the  development  of 
man's  free  personality  some  instrument  is  required.  "  It  is 
necessary,"  says  Hegel,  "to  find  some  external  sphere  for 
his  freedom."  In  the  psychology  was  briefly  traced  the  pro- 
cess by  which  the  spirit  gradually  takes  possession  of  the 
body — informs  it.     So  now,  mind  is  to  take  possession  of 

"Green,  Principles  of  Political  Obligation,  Works,  Vol.  ii,  p.  370. 


[264 

leave  the 
n?  The 
;or.  (2) 
'Vristotle. 
ell  as  in 
ual  there 
iiition  by 
)nging  to 
tter  of  a 
objects  as 
nnts  and 
pre-sup- 
unix'rrsal 
ceivable. 
speak  of 
ere  is  no 
ht  in  any 
erty  can 
y  social 
may  be, 
rative  in 
family, 
— if  we 
I  a  right 

:y  which 
mary  of 
mcnt  of 
"It  is 
lere  for 
the  pro- 
of the 
ssion  of 
570. 


265]  HEGEVS  DOCTRINE.   OF  THE  WILL  yg 

nature  and  make  it  also  instrumental.  Appropriatiun  as  an 
act  of  will  is  the  primary  stage  in  man's  self-realization. 
Occupation  is,  accordingly,  an  incident  rather  than  the  basis 
of  property.  The  thing  is  tfUHe  because  I  put  my  will  into 
it.  Propi  ity  is  thus,  primarily,  realized  will.  TUit  this  nt.cds 
qualification.  (2)  As  was  noted  above,  Hegel  maintains 
that  personality  is  the  foundation  of  all  rights.  Right  and 
duty  are  thus  cornlata  :  what  is  a  right  is  also  a  duty,  and 
what  is  a  duty  is  also  a  right.  Here  then,  for  Hcgcl,  there 
comes  in  the  social  element  in  property.^ The  rationality  of 
property  does  not  lie  in  its  satisfaction  6f  wants,  that  is,  of 
the  merely  individual  or  empirical  will,  but  in  its  ;ibrogation 
of  the  mere  subjectivity  of  personality.  It  is  in  property 
that  the  person  primarily  exists  as  reason.  It  is  the  effort 
on  the  part  of  the  individual  to  give  reality  to  a  universal — 
a  good.  "The  good  is  the  universal  of  will."  It  is  a  good 
which  the  individual  recognizes  to  be  common  to  himself 
with  others.  As  a  rational  being  man  recognizes  the  uni- 
versal in  particular  wants  and  desires.  Property  is  accord- 
ingly the  first  stage  in  man's  development  as  a  rational  or 
moral  being. 

Hegel  traces  the  notion  of  property  through  the  three 
stages.  ( I )  The  first  the  immediate  taking  possession  of  a 
thing;  (2)  The  fuller  consciousness  of  the  difference  between 
the  person  and  the  thing  in  the  transformation  of  the  latter 
through  use  ox  consumption  ;  (3)  The  voluntary  ;r//;/^///5/i!- 
ment  is  a  still  fuller  sort  of  ownership. 

§  39.  The  relinquishment  of  property  leads  naturally  to 
the  subject  of  contracts.  In  ownership  the  will  of  the  indi- 
vidual enters  the  circle  of  the  common  will ;  were  there  only 
a  single  proprietor  the  property  relation  could  not  be  devel- 
oped. The  relation  of  one  property  to  another  is  the  rela- 
tion of  will  to  will.  "Mine"  is  the  correlative  of  "thine;" 
and  this  relation  exists  because  we  admit  the  existence  of  a 


i\ 


i  I 


«o 


HEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[266 


common  will  which  we  are  ready  to  obey.  Property  really 
becomes  mine  when  recognized  as  such  by  another.  This 
recognition  is  the  essential  principle  in  contract.  In  it  the 
notion  of  a  common  will  is  beginning  to  take  visible  shape. 
The  will  of  contract,  as  distinguished  from  the  universal  will 
which  has  its  foundation  in  the  essential  nature  of  man  as  a 
rational  being,  and  which,  if  realized,  would  result  in  abso- 
lute justice,  is  particular  and  accidental.  The  universal  will 
must,  of  course,  find  its  realization  in  and  through  the  par- 
ticular will.  But  in  the  particular  will  on  which  contract  is 
based  there  is  no  assurance  of  its  conformity  with  the  uni- 
versal, nor  of  the  inner  motive  of  those  to  whom  is  owing  its 
existence.  This  common  will  of  the  individuals  in  a  contract 
of  necessity  sooner  or  later  conflicts  with  the  true,  universal 
will.  Such  collision  constitutes  wrong.  The  wrong  in 
question  may  of  course  be  unconscious  or  unintentional. 
Fraud  is  conscious  wrong ;  it  respects  the  form  but  disre- 
gards the  substance  of  right.  Wrong  as  crime  is  where 
neither  the  form  nor  substance  of  right  is  regarded.  Crime 
is  opposed  to  right  as  right,  inasmuch  as  it  is  an  attack  on 
freedom  in  its  universal  sense.  Crime  as  such  has,  of  course, 
no  external  existence — no  more  than  right.  Revenge,  which  is 
often  resorted  to,  and  in  which  punishment  in  its  earliest  stages 
undoubtedly  consisted,  is  merely  the  assertion  once  more  of 
right  cf  the  subjective  will.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  crime  is 
an  internal,  not  an  external,  condition,  a  condition  of  the  will 
rather  than  an  act  resulting  therefrom,  it  follows  that  any 
annulling  of  this  phase  of  the  particular  will  can  only  come 
from  regarding  punishment  as  but  the  completion  of  the  act 
undertaken  by  the  subjective  will  in  its  assertion  of  a  right 
which  is  at  variance  with  the  common  will.  In  the  criminal 
himself  must  lie  the  universal  that  is  to  do  him  justice.  It 
is  in  this  fact  that  punishment  has  its  justification ;  and  on 
this  all  rational  theories  of  punishment  must  ultimately  be 
based. 


rj 


[266 

T  really 
This 

n  it  the 
shape, 
sal  will 
an  as  a 
1  abso- 
sal  will 
be  par- 
tract  is 
he  uni- 
nng  its 
ontract 
liversal 
mg  in 
xtional. 
disre- 
where 
Crime 
ack  on 
:ourse, 
hich  is 
stages 
lore  of 
rime  is  '^ 
he  will 
at  any 
'  come 
;he  act 
■\  right 
iminal 
;e.  It 
nd  on 
;ely  be 


267J 


llEGEVS  DOCTRLVE  OF  THE  IVll.I. 


81 


§  40.  This  leads  us  to  see  what  is  Hegel's  conception  of 
the  true  meaning  of  punishment.  To  use  his  own  words, 
"  punishment  is  not  foreign  constraint  to  which  the  criminal 
is  subjected,  but  the  manifestation  of  his  own  act."  Crime 
is  not  simply  an  evil,  but  is  the  action  of  a  person  and  a  vio- 
lation of  right  as  such.  It  is  in  this  fact  that  the  justification 
of  punishment,  both  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  criminal 
and  of  society,  is  to  be  found.  His  punishment  is  in  reality 
the  right  of  the  criminal  as  a  free,  self-determining  agent;  it 
is  the  natural  expression  of  his  action.  This  is  consistent 
with  Hegel's  theory  of  right  and  duty,  namely,  that  there  can 
be  no  such  thing  as  abstract  self-realization:  rights  and 
duties  are  meaningless  to  an  individual  irrespective  of  soci- 
ety. "  Only,  if  we  grant  that  without  society  men  cannot 
realize  their  true  self,  can  it  be  maintained  that  no  one  is 
justified  in  separating  himself  from  society.  But  if  society  is 
necessary  to  constitute  a  right,  as  distinguished  from  a  mere 
object  of  desire,  it  cannot  be  said  that  society  is  an  acci- 
dental relation  into  which  men  may  or  may  not  enter ;  it  is  a 
relation  into  which  they  viust  enter  by  the  very  law  of  their 
reason.  I  have  rights  only  as  a  member  of  society,  not  as  a 
separate  individual." '3 

"  Punishment,"  says  Hegel,  "  is  really  a  right  to  the  crim- 
inal himself."  To  the  question,  then,  so  often  discussed, 
whether  punishment  in  its  proper  nature  is  to  be  regarded  as 
preventive,  retributive  or  reformatory,  Hegel  would  answer 
that  it  is  in  reality  all  three.  For  Hegel  man's  good  is  a 
social  good;  and  punishment  is  preventive  in  so  far  as  it 
tends  to  remove  hindrances  to  social  unity  which  have  been 
caused  by  individual  caprice.  It  is  educative,  also,  as  the 
positive  aspect  of  prevention — in  that  it  creates  in  the  mem- 
bers of  a  society  the  consciousness  that  punishment  is  the 
just    and  natural    outcome    of  the    criminal    act.      Tunish- 

"  Watson,  Comte,  Mill  and  Spencer,  p.  268. 


mm 


UXi 


8:- 


HEGEUS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[268, 


*      ' 


ment,  again,  is  retributive.  Not  in  the  sense  of  revenge, 
however,  which  is  only  a  new  violation ;  the  deed  of  a  mere 
subjective  arbitrary  will — pre-social  vengeance.  It  is  retri- 
butive in  the  sense  of  expressing  public  indignation  at 
wrong-doing.  As  Green  says,  "  this  indignation  is  insepara- 
ble from  the  interest  in  social  well-being,  and  along  with  it 
the  chief  agent  in  the  establishment  and  maintenance  of 
legal  punishment.'''-^ 

§  41,  The  right  of  punishment — as  the  right  of  property 
— is  for  Hegel  based  on  the  moral  nature  of  man.  Property, 
contract,  wrong,  are  stages  in  the  process  by  which  the  indi- 
vidual is  led  to  reflect  on  his  own  nature — driven  back  into 
himself.  Thus  it  is  in  his  relation  to  other  individuals  that 
man  is  gradually  led  to  reflect  upon  and  understand  his  own 
moral  nature.  So  that  the  machinery  of  law  is  but  instru- 
mental in  bringing  man  to  know  himself.  It  is  simply 
because  law  and  custom  are  the  expression  of  the  moral 
life  of  the  social  organism  that  the  individual  member  in 
time  becomes  conscious  of  his  own  moral  and  spiritual 
nature,  JL  ^w  compelled  him  to  respect  the  rights  of  others 
— whatever  his  subjective  will  or  inclination  might  have 
been.  But  it  cannot  be  said  that  such  an  act  is  moral  on  the 
part  of  the  mdividual.  Does  the  respect  for  the  rights  of 
others  spring  from  a  dictate  of  reason  ?  When  the  individ- 
ual puts  this  question  to  himself  he  has  entered  the  moral 
sphere.  Morality  is  personal — this  is  the  next  stage  in  the 
life  of  the  individual.  "  This,"  says  Hegel,  "  is  the  sphere  of 
reflective  thought,  the  internal  forum  of  conscience. "^^  Thus 
we  como  to  Hegel's  second  stage  in  the  treatment  of  objec- 
tive mind — of  morality  or  the  moral  life. 


'♦  Works  II.,  Political  Obligation,  §  183. 

^^ Philosophic  des  Rechts,  (SterreU's  Translation)  §  104, 


[268, 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  MORALITY   OF  CONSCIENCE 

§  42.     It  was  Socrates  who  said  that  "  an  unexamined  life 
is  not  one  that  bhoiilc'  be  led  by  man."     In  the  preceding 
chapter  was  given  an  outline  of  Hegel's  first  division  of  "  ob- 
jective mind,"  namely,  the  sphere  of  law  or  right,  where  life 
consisted   in  conformity  to  existing  law.     The  person  had 
not  arrived  at  that  stage  of  mi^rality  in  which  he  could  re- 
gard the  various  laws  and  customs  he  obeyed  as  the  very 
medium  through  which  his  self-realization  is  to  be  attained. 
His  conformity  to  the  laws,  it  may  be,  was  the  result  of  com- 
pulsion rather  than  of  a  spiritual  assimilation  of  their  import. 
This  represents  the  stage  of  enforced  obedience  in  the  life  of 
the  individual— an   ab-*-act  phase,    and,    inasmuch   as    the 
obedience  is  not  freely  cnosen  by  the  individua  ,  a  non-moral 
phase.     Environment,  as  the  expression  of  morality,  moral- 
izes the  individual  and   gives   him  whatever  conscience  he 
has.     The  environment  of  human  relations  is  thus,  a^  Prof. 
Dewey  remarks,  to  conscience   what  the   ex;ternal   world  of 
experience  is.  to  consciousness.     Tho  individual  has  to  put 
meaning  into  both,  and  thereby  come  to  understand  and  re- 
alize his  own  inner  life. 

The  second  division— of  conscience— deals  with  the  other 
side  of  the  relation— the  individual  subject  which  environ- 
ment gradually  awakens  to  a  sense  of  moral  values.  In 
conforming  to  the  life  of  the  family,  of  society,  and  of  the 
state,  the  individual  in  reality  lives  over  the  life  of  his  people 
and  of  the  human  race,  and  thus  gradually  rises  to  conscious 
269]  83 


mmmimmm 


84 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE   WILL 


[270 


I     I' 


\\ 


participation  in  a  common  good  which  is  being  reahzed  in 
the  Hves  of  men.  From  the  fact  that  law  or  right  is  treated 
before  morality  it  would  seem  that  Hegel  regarded  law  as 
the  basis  of  morality,  rather  than  morality  as  the  basis  of 
law.  As  will  be  seen  later,  the  phases  law  and  duty  are 
both  abstract,  and  the  truly  ethical  life  results  from  an  inte- 
gration of  the  two.  As  to  the  question  whether  law  pre- 
cedes morality  or  the  reverse,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
the  notion  of  right  or  law  enters  more  into  social  relations, 
and  furnishes  the  general  standard  for  society  in  its  judg- 
ment of  action.  For  the  majority  of  individuals  their 
morality  appears  as  the  result  of  laws  externally  enforced, 
rather  than  of  the  living  self-unfolding  of  the  spiritual 
nature.  The  concrete  act  is  the  unit  of  morality  or  con- 
duct; and  the  act,  to  be  moral,  is  for  the  individual  who  has 
adopted  it  as  the  medium  of  his  self-expression,  his  good. 
In  reality,  then,  law  and  morality  are  evolved  together,  and 
their  separation,  save  for  purposes  of  examination,  creates  a 
false  antithesis.  This,  then,  is  Hegel's  meaning.  Morality, 
the  identification  by  the  individual  of  his  good  with  the 
common  or  universal  good,  is  the  principle  of  cohesion  in 
every  form  of  association  from  the  most  primitive  horde  to 
the  various  social  institutions — the  family,  the  church,  the 
state — of  modern  civilization.  "  Pure  individualism  would 
mean  social  dissolution."  ' 

§  43.  Society  is  thus  for  Hegel  an  expression  of  morality. 
The  "  moral"  in  reality  includes  the  entire  active  life  of  man. 
The  end  of  life  is  self-expression  and  self-development 
through  activity.  So  that  our  every  action  contributes  to 
the  self-unfolding  of  the  personal  life.  For  Hegel,  as  he 
says,  the  moral  signifies  volitional  mode,  so  far  as  it  is  in  the 
interior  of  the  will  in  general.^     It  is  the  subjective  aspect  of 

'  D'Arcy,  Short  Study  of  Ethics,  p.  195. 

2  Wevkc,  VII.,  §  503  (  The  Philosophy  of  Mind,  translated  by  Wallace) . 


[270 

ilized  in 
;  treated 
i  law  as 
basis  of 
iuty  are 

an  inte- 
law  pre- 
)ubt  that 
-elations, 
its  judg- 
als  their 
enforced, 

spiritual 
!  or  con- 

who  has 
lis  good, 
ither,  and 

creates  a 
Morality, 

with  the 
(hesion  in 

horde  to 
lurch,  the 

m  would 

morality, 
fe  of  man. 
clopment 
ributcs  to 
cl,  as  he 
t  is  in  the 
aspect  of 

Wallace). 


271] 


HEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE   WILL 


85 


conformity  to  the  laws  and  institutions  in  which  the  ethical 
principle,  at  work  in  the  life  of  humanity,  has  embodied  itself , 
it  thus  includes  the  "purpose"  and  "  intention"  of  the  indi- 
vidual. 

In  the  sphere  of  abstract  right  the  will  of  the  person  found 
its  realization  in  objective  action;  in  "morality"  freedom 
becomes  the  conscious  possession  of  the  subject.  The  will 
finds  its  freedom  in  the  internal  rather  than  in  the  external. 
The  supreme  aim  of  the  will  in  its  subjective  character,  as 
Hegel  says,  is  that  laws  and  precepts  shall  have  their  recog- 
nition and  justification  in  the  heart  and  conscience  of  the 
subject.  It  is  this  internal  freedom  that  stamps  their  value 
on  actions  and  makes  the  subject  responsible  for  his  deeds. 
From  the  moral  standpoint  man  is  judged  according  to  his 
own  self-determination.  He  is  responsible,  according  to 
Hegel,  for  such  changes  wrought  in  his  environment  as  were 
consciously  included  in  his  purpose.  Are  actions,  then,  to 
be  the  subject  of  moral  approval  or  disapproval,  (i)  solely 
from  their  consequences,  or  (2)  is  merely  the  inner  side  of  the 
action,  irrespective  of  consequences,  to  be  taken  into  ac- 
count? This,  according  to  Hegel,  is  a  false  antithesis.  It  is 
in  the  motive  of  the  self-determining  subject  that  the  morality 
of  an  action  is  to  be  found.  The  motive  has  both  a  subjec- 
tive and  objective  reference.  For  Hegel,  as  has  been  seen, 
the  primary  and  fundamental  ethical  conception  is,  the  good. 
It  is  in  the  action — the  end — that  the  satisfaction  of  the  self 
is  attained.  The  self  cannot  be  separated  from  the  object, 
but  is  the  immanent  life  of  the  activity ;  the  activity  is  the 
end,  and  it  is  to  this  that  morality  appertains.  The  motive 
is  the  determining  soul  of  action. 

§  44.  "The  Good,"  says  Hegel,  "is  the  Idea,  as  the 
unity  of  the  concept  of  the  will  and  of  the  particular  will.  It 
is  realized  freedom,  the  absolute  final  purpose  of  the  world. 
In  this  unity,  abstract  right,  as  well  as  well-being,  and  the 


86 


HEGEUS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[272 


subjectivity  of  knowledge  are  annulled  as  independent  in 
themselves,  but  at  the  same  time  are  contained  and  pre- 
served in  it  as  to  their  essence. "3  The  harmony  of  the  par- 
ticular and  universal  will  is  the  good.  Conscience  is  simply 
the  mind  acting  in  a  certain  direction — specifying  in  what 
the  good  consists.  For  llegel  the  right  is  not  good  without 
well-being,  and  well-being  is  not  good  without  right.  Since 
the  good  so  far  exists  as  a  universal  not  brought  into  har- 
mony with  the  particular  modes  of  the  individual's  action,  it 
imposes  on  the  individual  will  an  inviolable  ideal  of  duty.  It 
was  this  standpoint  which  Kant  regarded  as  the  highest. 
The  difficulty  involved  \\\  Kant's  doctrine  of  duty  has  been 
outlined  in  a  preceding  chapter.  As  Hegel  says,  "  It  is  the 
merit  of  the  lofty  standpoint  of  Kant's  philosophy  to  have 
emphasized  the  significance  of  duty.  Yet  every  action  de- 
mands some  definite  content  and  aim.  Abstract  duty  does 
not  contain  such,  consequently,  the  question  arises,  what  is 
duty?"t 

"It  is  Hegel,"  says  Prof.  Seth,  "who,  of  all  modern  phil- 
osophers, has  given  most  adequate  expression  to  the  essen- 
tial principle  of  the  ethical  life,  alike  on  its  negative  and  on 
its  positive  side.  With  Kant  he  recognizes  the  full  claim  of 
reason,  but  he  insists  upon  correlating  with  it  the  rightful 
claim  of  sensibility.  In  ethics,  as  in  metaphysics,  Hegel 
finds  the  universal  in  the  particular,  the  rational  in  the  sen- 
sible. In  the  evolution  of  the  moral,  as  of  the  intellectual 
life,  he  discovers  the  dialectical  movement  of  affirmation 
through  negation,  of  life  through  death ;  in  the  one  as  in  the 
other  phase  of  human  experience,  '  that  is  first  which  is  nat- 
ural, and  afterwards  that  which  is  spiritual,'  The  life  of 
natural  sensibility  is  only  the  raw  material  of  the  moral  life."s 

'  WerkefW\\,%  129  (/y»7Mc///«V  r/w /'tr/^A.Sterrett's  Translation). 
*  Werke,  VII,  §  §  133-4  (^Philosophie  des  Rechts,  Stetrett's  Translation) . 
"  A  Study  oj  Ethical  Principles,  p.  227. 


273] 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRLVE  OF  THE   WILL 


87 


In  the  preceding  chapters  we  have  tried  to  indicate  how 
Hegel  was  in  reality  the  first  to  penetrate  beneath  dualism 
in  all  its  forms  ;  and  this  is  especially  apparent  in  his  ethical 
system.  Previous  to  the  time  of  Hegel,  ethical  theories  were 
founded  on  a  dualistic,  or,  as  Prof.  Seth  says,  "a  half  view  of 
human  nature."  The  highest  life,  according  to  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  was  the  life  of  contemplation.  The  theories  of  the 
Cynics  and  the  Cyrenaics  were  one-sided — a  one-sidedness 
aggravated  by  the  Stoic  and  the  Epicurean  systems.  The 
asceticism  of  the  Middle  Ages  needs  only  to  be  mentioned 
— an  asceticism  which  hung  like  a  body  of  death  to  the  sys- 
tem of  Kant.  For  Hegel,  however,  the  life  of  natural  sensi- 
bility must  be  the  "raw  material,"  but  only  the  raw  material 
of  the  moral  life.  It  is  for  the  practical  reason  to  direct  and 
control ;  and  man  in  being  self-conscious  can  determine 
himself  through  the  chaos  of  sensations  and  desires  into  a 
free  intelligence  and  will.  The  developed  man  is  he  whose 
natural  inclinations  and  desires  are  purged  by  the  alchemy 
of  a  consistent  purpose,  which  in  turn  imparts  to  his  various 
activities  their  peculiar  significance  and  value.  The  ethical 
life  is  the  self-unfolding  of  the  whole  personality. 

§  45.  The  genuine  conscience,  says  Hegel,  is  the  mind 
wishing  for  that  only  which  is  absolutely  good.  Conscience 
is  the  reflection  of  man  into  himself;  it  is  self-communion. 
But  for  Hegel  morality  is  not  yet  "ethicality,"  the  organic 
unity  of  the  good  and  conscience,  of  the  universal  and  the 
individiial.  From  the  formal  standpoint  of  morality,  con- 
science lacks  all  such  objective  content.  "  It  is  merely  the 
infinite  formal  certitude  of  itself — of  the  subjective  'ndividual. 
It  expresses  the  absolute  right  of  the  subjective  self-con- 
sciousness to  know  just  what  the  right  and  obligatory  are."^ 
This  is  the  m  ^re  subjective  consciousness  with  its  demand, 
"  duty  for  duty's  sake."     It  insists  on  maintaining  only  its 

•  Werke,  VIII,  Philosophic  des  Rechts,  §  137  (Sturretfs  Translation). 


I  i 


[/ 


88 


JIEGEUS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  ^v  ILL 


[274 


inner  convictions ;  and,  if  permitted  to  go  on,  would  really 
dissolve  all  definite  forms  of  right  and  duty.  But  Hegel,  as 
will  be  apparent,  is  far  from  denying  the  right  of  private 
judgment.  The  good  as  objective  and  universal  must  find 
its  realization  through  the  self-determining  activity  of  in- 
dividual subjects.  "We  may  grant,"  says  Hegel,  "that  no 
current  form  of  morality  is  absolutely  true  and  final.  When 
any  current  form  has  become  insufficient  or  obsolete,  it  is 
the  prerogative  of  subjectivity  to  evolve  another.  In  truth, 
every  existing  form  of  cthicality  (concrete  social  morality) 
has  been  produced  through  this  subjective  activity  of  the 
social  spirit."'' 

§  46.  The  Good  or  Duty  must  be  universal  and  objective 
as  well,  and  the  medium  of  its  expression  can  only  be  the 
self-determining  activity  of  the  individual  subject.  "And 
the  true  conscience  cannot  be  merely  subjective  and  inde- 
terminate consciousness  of  an  abstractly  universal  power 
and  right  of  self-determination."  "The  individual,"  says 
Schurman,  "  has  not  to  create  from  his  own  innate  empti- 
ness some  new  morality ;  in  the  main,  he  has  only  to  make 
his  own  the  morality  of  his  people  and  his  country."  ^  The 
integration  of  the  Good  and  subjective  will  forms  the  third 
phase  of  "  Objective  Mind  " — the  ethical  life.  Yet  law  and 
morality  are  not  set  aside :  they  are  transformed  into  the 
concrete  moral  life  of  man  as  it  is  unfolded  in  a  social  com- 
munity. "  Both  right  and  morality  need  the  ethical  for  their 
foundation,  as  without  it  neither  has  any  actuality.  Only 
the  Idea,  the  true  infinite,  is  actual.  Rights  exist  only  as 
the  branch,  or  as  a  plant  clinging  round  a  firm  tree."  ^ 

'  Werke,  VIII,  Fhilosophie  dcs  Rechts,  §  138  (Sterrett's  Translation). 

^Kantian  Ethics  and  the  Ethics  of  Evolution,  p.  66. 

»  Werke,  VIII,  Fhilosophie  des  Rechts  (Sterrett's  Translation). 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE   ETHICAL   LIFE 


Life  is  one  :  the  individuil  and  society  are  its  two  necessary  manifestations ; 
life  considered  singly,  and  life  in  relation  to  others.  Flames  kindled  upon  a  com- 
mon altar,  they  approach  each  other  in  rising,  until  they  mingle  together  in  God. 

Mazzini. 

§  47.  The  ethical  world  of  concrete  social  life  {Sittlichkcit) 
which  forms  the  third  division  of  Hegel's  treatment  of  "  ob- 
jective "  mind,  is  the  integration  of  the  two  preceding  stages, 
the  legal  or  objective  freedom,  and  of  abstract  subjectivity, 
asserting  the  right  of  private  judgment.  In  this  stage  man's 
self-consciousness  becomes  the  ethical  or  spiritual  conscious- 
ness, and  his  will,  the  will  of  the  spirit.  The  individual  life 
becomes  an  expression  of  the  spiritual  life  of  its  environ- 
ment. No  longer  does  the  individual  subject  render  an 
enforced  submission  to  the  laws  and  institutions  as  some- 
thing foreign  to  his  nature:  rather,  as  Hegel  says,  these 
afiford  to  him  the  "  testimony  of  the  spirit  as  being  of  its 
own  essence." '  Freedom  is  the  full-blown  flower  of  spirit. 
In  the  ethical  life  of  organized  human  and  spiritual  relations, 
this  ideal  of  freedom  is  gradually  unfolded  in  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  men ;  who  come  to  learn  that  their  highest  good 
is  bound  up  with  the  good  of  others,  The  reedom  of  the 
will  is  for  Hegel  the  expression  of  the  entne  personality,  as 
the  individual  is  the  expression  of  society.  On  the  fidelity 
with  which  the  individual  performs  his  function  depends  the 
lite  of  the  social  organism :   and  in  turn,  it  is  the  existence 


•?5] 


»  Werke,  Mil,  §  147. 


89 


90 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE   WILL 


[276 


of  the  social  organism  which  enables  the  individual  to  fulfil 
his  capacities.  "  In  ceasing  to  contend  for  his  rights  against 
others,  he  has  made  all  their  rights  his  own.  The  sacrifice 
of  selfishness  is  the  birth  of  the  true  self.  The  universal, 
which  seemed  to  swallow  up  the  individual  life,  for  the  first 
time  gives  it  possession  of  the  good  for  which  it  exists." ' 

§  48.  The  individual  in  becoming  conscious  of  the  various 
relations  existing  in  the  community  in  which  he  is  a  vital 
and  organic  member,  recognizes  their  fulfilment  as  duties 
which  are  binding  on  his  will.  The  world  of  man's  duty  is 
the  actual  world.  "There  is  nothing  else  for  him  to  do," 
says  Hegel,  "than  that  which  is  prescribed,  proclaimed  and 
made  known  to  him  in  his  ethical  relations."  3  As  man 
grows  into  true  freedom,  the  fulfilment  of  these  duties  will 
more  and  more  wear  the  aspect  of  necessity :  for  with  Hegel, 
freedom  is  the  freedom  of  necessity.  Man's  freedom  is 
through  obedience ;  not  that  duty,  however,  can  ever  be  a 
limitation.  "Obligatory  duty  can  appear  as  a  limitatinii 
only  to  uiidetermined  subjectivity  or  abstract  ireedom,  and 
to  the  desires  of  the  natural  will,  or  to  that  moral  will  which 
determines  its  indeterminate  good  through  its  own  caprice,"* 
In  fulfilling  his  duty  the  individual  man  finds  his  liberation 
from  the  unsatisf)'ing  isolation  of  his  natural  self.  "It  is 
when  the  moral  life  of  society  flows  into  me  that  my  nalllle 
reaches  a  fuller  development ;  and  then  only  are  my  social 
duties  adequately  fulfilled  when  they  cease  to  have  tl»o 
aspect  of  an  outward  law  and  pass,  in  love  and  self-devotion, 
into  the  spontaneity  of  a  second  nature."  ^ 

Virtue  for  Hegel  is  ethical  personality:  it  is  the  ethical 
spirit  in  so  far  as  it  is  embodied  in  the  life  of  the  individual. 

^  Caird,  The  Evolution  of  Religion,  Vol.  II,  p.  155. 

^  Werke,  VIII,  §  150  {Philosop/iie  des  Rechts,  Sterrett's  Translation.) 

*  Werke,  VIII,  §  149  (^Philosophie  ties  Rechts,  Sterrett's  Translation). 

*  Principal  Caird,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  265. 


277]  HEGEUS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  gj 

"We  are  suckled  at  the  breast  of  the  environing  ethos,"  says 
Hegel.  The  individual  is  what  he  is  in  so  far  as  he  has  re- 
sponded to  the  moulding  influences  of  his  "  spiritual  setting." 
That  man  is  virtuous  who  manifests  the  ethical  as  an  abiding 
element  in  his  character.  As  with  Aristotle,  virtue  is  a 
habit:  the  ethical  spirit  becomes  a  second  nature;  the  living 
and  informing  soul  of  every  action.  Education,  then,  in  its 
broadest  and  truest  sense,  is  "  the  art  of  making  men  ethical : 
it  considers  man  as  a  merely  natural  being — it  shows  the 
way  to  a  new  birth,  how  to  convert  his  first  nature  into  a 
second  spiritual  nature,  so  that  this  spiritual  becomes  a  habit 
in  him."  The  man,  however,  who  is  to  remain  alive  spirit- 
ually must  not  allow  his  subjective  consciousness  to  become 
dim  through  a  spirit-deadening  conformity  to  mere  habit, 
nor  his  soul  to  cease  its  response  to  the  ravishing  ideal.  He 
must  ever  be  mindful  of  the  truth  expressed  in  Lowell's 
words : 

"New  occasions  teach  new  duties; 

Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth." 

In  other  words,  only  as  it  is  progressive  can  the  soul  of 
man  \\\\\\\  moral  and  spiritual  healthfulness.  A  man's  con- 
BUlfcidcc  J3  co|)tinually  reacting  on  iis  environment.  The 
dtJltsbltillJ^fe'  \\\  i(|tl|'i(|||f||s  is  the  absolute)  form,  as  Hegel 
says,  the  existing  nctdrtljl)')  the  ethical  life  of  the  community. 
1/  tllcfo  oxi«lH  a  bornl  nf  union  in  the  state  it  must  issue  from 
tke  Inner  life  of  the  IndividuvU  members.  It  cannot  come 
from  without.  And,  as  IVof.  Dewey  states  it,  "  the  moral 
eilfl'^nvni'  nf  man  takes  the  form  not  of  isolated  fancies  about 
right  and  wrong,  nor  of  attempts  to  frame  a  morality  for 
himself,  nor  of  efforts  to  bring  into  being  some  praiseworthy 
ideal  never  realized,  but  the  form  of  sustaining  and  furthering 
the  moral  world  of  which  he  is  a  member."  The  work  of  the 
individual  is  a  work  for  others,  and  is  rendered  possible  only 


92 


Hr.GEi:S  DOCTKLXE  OF  THE  WILL 


[278 


•If 


.t 


through  the  work  of  others,  Man  as  an  individual  thus 
lives  through  the  universal ;  seeing  in  the  universal  his  out- 
ward existence,  which  is  gradually  reproduced  in  his  own 
conscious  experience  and  in  that  of  his  fellow-citizens. 
Thus,  also,  his  every  action,  even  the  commonest,  is  trans- 
formed in  the  light  of  its  spiritual  worth  and  given  its  signifi- 
cance in  the  gradual  unfolding  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  men 
of  that  power  "  which  makes  for  righteousness."  For  Hegel, 
ethical  atomism  is  inconceivable.  Man  is  an  intelligent  and 
moral  personality  because,  as  individual,  he  is  a  partaker  of 
the  life  of  Universal  Reason — a  sharer  in  that  Divine  life 
v/hicl:  gradually  "  reproduces  itself  iit  the  human  soul."'' 

§  49.  Hegel  traces  the  development  of  the  person  to 
completed  freedom  through  three  stages : 

(1)  The  family;  which  is  the  primary  nucleus  of  all 
human  union  and  fellowship. 

(2)  The  civic  community ;  th  union  of  independent  in- 
dividuals in  a  formal  universality  for  the  security  of  private 
and  common  interests. 

(3)  The  state;  which  is  the  self-conscious  substance,  or 
the  invisible  spirit  of  the  nation  developed  to  an  organic 
actuality  in  the  hearts  and  customs  and  genius  of  the  people. 

§  50.  The  family  is  the  primary  union  of  mankind.  "The 
spirit,"  says  Hegel,  "  finds  itself  bound  to  another,  and  in 
this  tie  feels  the  assurance  of  its  own  existence."  Love, 
which  is  its  foundation,  its  organizing  and  controlling  prin- 
ciple, is  the  consciousness  of  our  unity  with  another.  It 
contains  first  of  all  a  feeling  of  dependence  ;  and  in  my  union 
with  another  I  am  made  that  which  I  feel  my  true  nature 
bids  me  become.  "The  family,"  says  Mackenzie,  "is  like  a 
burning-glass  which  concentrates  human  sympathies  on  a 
point.  Within  that  narrow  circle  selfishness  is  gradually 
overcome  and  wider  interests  developed.     The  family  ena- 


I 


'Green,  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  §  180. 


2791 


IlEGKL'S  noCTRINE  OF  Tlfl'.    iVU.I. 


93 


bles  a  few  persons  to  become  not  mcr^  ly  objects  for  each 
other,  but  parts  of  a  single  life  ;  and  the  unity  thus  effected 
may  then  be  very  readily  extended  as  sympathies  j;ro\v."  ' 
The  family  has  ever  been  the  first  instrument  of  man's  social 
education — of  his  moralization.  As  sensation  is  the  first  cle- 
ment in  the  growth  of  his  intellectual  world,  so  love  is  the 
first  in  humane  self-knowledge. 

Hegel  considers  the  family  relation  in  three  of  its  aspects: 
(i)  marriage,  (2)  family  property,  (3)  the  education  of  the 
children  and  the  dissolution  01  the  family. 

The  family  is  based  upon  marriage.  Hegel  conceives  the 
question  of  marriage  to  lie  at  the  very  foundation  o(  "^he  life 
of  a  state.  "The  greatest  and  deepest  of  all  li  nan  contro- 
versies," says  Gladstone,  "  is  the  marriage  controversy.  It 
appears  to  be  surging  up  on  all  sides  around  us."  The  his- 
tory of  human  marriage  may  b-  traced  back  to  ft)rms  which 
diftcr  little  from  the  life  of  the  animals.  Merely  to  trace  it 
back  to  its  lowly  beginning,  however;  to  regard  it  as  merely 
a  natural  institution,  is  to  lose  sight  of  the  higher  purposes 
which,  at  present,  we  are  accustomcl  to  associate  with  it. 
"Marriage  has  been  subject  to  evolution  in  various  ways," 
writes  Wcstcrmarck,  "though  the  course  of  evolution  has 
not  always  been  the  same.  The  dominant  tendency  has  been 
the  cxtcn:^ion  of  the  wife's  rights.  A  wife  is  no  longer  the 
husband's  property;  and  according  to  modern  ideas,  mar- 
riage is,  or  should  be,  a  contract  on  the  footing  of  perfect 
equality  between  the  sexes.  The  history  of  human  marriage 
is  the  history  of  a  relation  in  which  women  have  been  gradu- 
ally triumphing  over  the  passions,  prejudices  and  selfish 
interests  of  men."  ^  Yet  in  every  phase  of  human  evolution 
the  question  of  interest  is,  "what  has  been  evolved,"  and  "to 
what  end  is  the  evolution  directed?" 

'  An  Introduction  to  Social  Philosophy,  p]).  363-4. 
8  History  of  Human  Marriage,  pp.  549-550. 


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For  Hegel  marriage  is  essentially  an  ethical  or  spiritual 
relation.  It  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  an  ordinary  mutual 
contract;  for,  in  reality,  it  is  an  agreement  to  pass  beyond 
that  sphere.  The  objective  point  of  its  inception  is  the  free 
consent  of  the  persons  concerned  to  give  up  their  independ- 
ent personality  and  find  their  true  and  higher  personaHty  in 
each  other — "the  two-cell'd  heart  beating,  with  one  full 
stroke,  life."  The  subjective  feeling  is  not,  for  Hegel,  the 
only  one  of  importance.  "  It  is  a  further  abstraction,"  he 
says,  "when  the  divine,  the  substantial  in  this  phase  of  senti- 
ment is  separated  from  its  proper  sexual  side,  and  from  the 
feeling  and  the  consciousness  of  spiritual  unity,  and  falsely 
given  a  separate  existence  as  Platonic  love!'  9  Abstraction 
finds  no  place  in  Hegel's  system.  The  natural  self  must  be 
the  organ  of  the  spiritual  life.  "  Our  life  is  one,  because  our 
nature  is  one."  '°  "  The  new  life  which  rises  out  of  the  mar- 
riage union,  and  of  which  the  qperely  animal  nature  is  incapa- 
ble, reacts  on  the  crude  material  out  of  which  it  emerges. 
Love  and  self-surrender  transfigure  appetite  into  a  spiritual 
affection,  and  purge  it  of  its  baseness." "  Hegtl's  entire 
doctrine  of  ethics  is  informed  by  the  idea  that  the  spirit 
must  realize  its  capacities,  not  by  withdrawal  from  the  nat- 
ural, but  by  transforming  the  natural  into  a  spiritual  setting 
for  its  higher  purposes.  "  From  flesh  unto  spirit  man 
grows,"  says  Browning  ;   and  Matthew  Arnold — 

"  Know  man  hath  all  which  Nature  hath,  but  more, 
And  in  that  more  lies  all  his  hopes  of  good."  " 

The  absolute  prerequsite  of  marriage,  then,  according  to 
Hegel,  is  reciprocal  love.     Bassanio  found  the  image  of  Por- 


»  Werke  VIII.,  §  162  {Philosopie  des  Rechts,  Sterrett's  Translation). 
'"  Seth,  A  Study  of  Ethical  Principles,  p.  219. 

■'  Caird,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  275. 
1'^  Quoted  by  Prof.  Seth,  loc.  cit. 


28 1  ]  HEGEUS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL  qc 

tia  imprinted  on  his  heart.  Both  found  their  harmonious  ex- 
istence in  the  other.  Shakespeare  doubtless  intended  theirs 
as  the  "  marriage  of  true  minds,"  and  Belmont  as  rhe  land  of 
harmony  and  love.  According  to  Hegel  the  marriage  cere- 
mony should  be  sacredly  solemnized  as  the  visible  expres- 
sion of  a  spiritual  relation.  His  entire  conception  is  based 
on  the  worth  of  personality.  Anything,  therefore,  which  in- 
dicates that  either  party  is  used  as  a  means  rather  than  as  an 
end,  destroys  the  truth  of  the  relation.  Property  acquires 
also  an  ethical  interest  when  held  in  common.  In  the  fam- 
ily possessions,  however,  the  unity  of  the  parents  is  in  an 
an  external  thing— but  in  the  child,  in  which  their  love  is  in- 
carnated, the  unity  is  in  a  spiritual  being.  The  marriage  re- 
lation is  completed  in  the  natural  and  spiritual  birth  of  the 
child.  As  Browning  says,  "  'Tis  in  a  child  man  and  wife 
grow  complete,  one  ilesh."  It  is  the  duty  of  the  parents  :o 
help  the  child  in  its  self-unfolding,  as  a  free  spiritual  being, 
to  independent  personality;   this  is  its  spiritual  birth. 

§  51.  The  Civic  Community  stands  between  the  family 
and  the  state,  although  its  historical  evolution  may  be  sub- 
sequent to  that  of  the  state.  It  is  the  sphere  of  self-interest. 
Yet  individualism  is  only  possible  on  a  social  basis.  Pushed 
to  the  extreme  it  is  anarchy.  Even  in  attaining  the  satis- 
faction of  his  wants  the  individual  must  enter  into  relation 
with  others  and  so  minister  also  to  the  attainment  of  their 
ends.  Thus  in  the  liberation  from  mere  wants  lies  their 
social  or  universal  aspect.  "Particularity  limited  by  uni- 
versality is  alone  the  measure  through  which  every  particu- 
lar individual  furthers  his  own  welfare."  '3  Of  the  civic  com- 
munity Hegel  notices  the  three  phases:  (i)  the  system  of 
wants,  (2)  the  administration  of  justice,  (3)  the  police  and 
municipal  corporation.  Wants  arc  satisfied  through  labor. 
By  the  division  of  labor  production  and  technical  skill  is  in- 

'»  Weike,  VIII,  §  182  {Philosophie  des  Rechts,  Sterrett's  Translation). 


-Jktl 


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96 


IIEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[282 


|i 


Sf 


11 

::ir 


.11, 1 


I  I 


creased ;  and  each  individual  becon>es  more  dependent  on 
the  social  system.  "  It  is  Reason  as  immanent  in  the  sys- 
tem of  human  wants  and  activities  that  articulates  this  sys- 
tem into  an  organic  whole  of  different  members."  '* 

§  52.  The  State  for  Hegel  is  the  realization  of  the  moral 
idea.  "  It  is  the  spirit  that  dwells  i'l  the  world  and  realizes 
itself  in  the  world  through  consciousness.  It  is  the  course 
of  God  through  the  world  that  constitutes  the  state.  Its 
ground  is  the  power  of  Reason  actualizing  itself  as  will." 
In  it  the  family  and  the  civic  community  find  their  true  ex- 
pression. Reason  must  be  to  some  extent  at  least  the 
immanent  and  vitalizing  principle  of  all  existing  states ;  just 
as  every  human  being,  however  abnormal,  reflects  the  ideal. 
The  bond  between  states  is  the  spirit  of  humanity  which  has 
been  partially  realized  in  the  course  of  history.  The  spirit 
of  humanity  is  the  spirit  of  God  as  actual  on  earth.  The 
ideal  state  is  the  harmony  of  the  individual  and  the  uni- 
versal— the  harmonious  and  complete  realization  of  both 
elements. 

Every  phase  of  human  life  is  for  Hegel  a  product  of 
growth,  not  of  manufacture.>l  Freedom  is  the  self-unfolding 
of  a  person  under  the  immanent  law  of  reason.  In  a  pre- 
ceding chapter  Hegel's  conception  of  the  development  of 
consciousness  was  traced  in  outline.  Consciousness  was  not 
simply  the  creation  of  an  environment,  nor  yet  was  its  '::x- 
istence  apart  from  environment  conceivable.  Thought  is  an 
organic  process.  A  godless  world  and  a  vvorldless  God  are 
both  alike  abstractions.  Freedom  is  not  the  freedom  of  in- 
difference, but  the  freedom  of  necessity,  which  regards  the 
volition  apart  from  the  character  as  a  pure  abstraction.  So 
also  in  Hegel's  conception  of  society  the  individual  apart 
from  society  simply  does  not  exist.  The  conception  of 
"  natural  rights"  and  of  the  "  social  contract"  are  alike  ab- 

'♦  Werke,  VIII,  §  200  {Philosophie  des  Rechts,  Sterrett's  Translation). 


i 


«.^iii!;!i  I 


283]  HEGEVS  D0C7RINE  OF  THE  WILL  gt, 

struCtions,  Rights  and  duties  belong  to  man  only  because 
"he  is  by  nature  a  so".ial  being."  The  individualism  of 
modern  society  received  its  practical  refutation  in  the  French 
Revolution.  For  Hegel,  will,  not  force,  is  the  basis  of  the 
state.  Rights  and  duties,  than  which  nothing  in  the  state 
are  more  real,  have  their  ultimate  justification  in  sell-con- 
sciousness. 

The  true  view  of  society  as  an  organism  is  that  which  re- 
gards the  individual  life  as  the  soci.il  life.  "The  state  licing 
objective  reason,  or  spirit,  the  individual  himself  has  real 
human  objectivity,  true  individuality,  and  a  truly  ethical 
quality  only  as  he  is  a  member  of  the  State."''  It  is,  there- 
fore, a  mistak-e  to  emphasize  the  antithesis  between  the  in- 
dividual and  social  life.  In  one  sense  it  is  true  that  the  in- 
div'-lual  can  only  realize  his  capacities  by  rising  superior  to 
environment.  Yet,  as  Prof.  Seth  well  says,  "  the  individual 
and  the  social  are  in  reality  two  aspects  of  the  one  undivided 
life  of  virtue,  and  their  unity  is  discovered  with  their  reduc- 
tion to  the  common  principle  of  Personality,"  "^  According 
to  Hegel,  the  state  is  not  a  mechanism ;  it  is  the  rational  life 
of  self-conscious  freedom  ;  it  is  the  order  of  the  moral  world. 
It  is  thus  the  moral  order  of  individuals ;  the  life  of  the  state 
is,  therefore,  the  life  of  individuals.  In  reality,  as  Prof.  Seth 
remarks  in  the  passage  already  mentioned,  society  is  not  an 
"  organism,"  but  the  ethical  organization  of  individuals.  In 
living  the  social  life,  however,  the  individual  must  also  find 
the  satisfaction  of  his  own  interests.  "  In  the  right  of  the 
individual  to  seek  his  own  welfare  lies  the  possibility  of  his 
seeking  the  welfare  of  the  social  organism. "'?  Thus  egoism 
and  altruism,  as  theories,  are  both  alike  abstract.  Morality 
is  the  realization  of  the  person.     But  abstract  self-realization 

'*  Morris,  Hegel,  Philosophy  of  History,  p.  80. 

i«^  Study  0/  Ethical  Pi  inciples,  p.  284. 

"  Prof.  Henry  Jones,  Essays  in  Philosophical  Criticism,  p.  200. 


:i  ii;'!!'i 


ii' 


98 


H EG  EDS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[284 


ir 


•If 


is  inconceivable.  As  Prof.  Royce  says,  "  there  is  no  merely 
inner  self."  There  is  no  such  thing  as  individual  self-con- 
sciousness— nor  individual  self-realization. 

From  this  standpoint  there  is  no  conflict  between  Indi- 
vidualism and  Socialism,  Progress  in  society  can  only  mean 
progress  in  the  individuals  composing  it.  It  is  the  fuller 
articulation  of  the  rights  and  duties  of  the  indiviuual  mem- 
bers in  order  to  their  freer  self-development.  The  state  is  the 
medium  of  personal  self-expression:  this  is  its  ethical  basis. 
Personality  is  the  ultimate  fact.  All  rights  and  duties  are 
the  expression  of  persons;  "  State  intcffercnce  "  may  limit 
the  individual ;  it  cannot  limit  the  person.  The  development 
of  society,  therefore,  must  be  from  within.  In  development 
an  ideal  is  implied ;  and  ideals  can  only  originate  in  person- 
ality. "  The  life  task  of  every  individual,"  says  Hluntschli, 
"  is  to  develop  his  c<ipacities  and  to  manifest  his  essence. 
,  So,  too,  the  duty  of  the  state-person  is  to  develop  the  latent 
[  powers  of  the  .lation,  and  to  manifest  its  capacities."  '^ 
"The  liberation  of  mind,  in  which  it  proceeds  to  come  to 
itself  and  to  realize  its  truth,  and  the  business  of  so  doing,  is 
the  supreme  right,  the  absolute  Law."  '^  The  true  freedom 
of  the  individual  means,  for  Hegel,  nothing  but  "determina- 
tion by  the  absolute  idea  throughout."  The  civic  and  social 
institutions  are  the  objective  expression  of  man's  freedom — 
of  the  moral  ideal.  The  moral  life  is  the  state  reflected  in 
the  heart  of  the  individual  member,  while  the  state  is  the 
concrete  body  with  which  the  moral  life  is  clothed.  Hegel, 
however,  recognizes  no  finality  in  the  moral  life,  nor  in  the 
ethical  institutions  in  which  it  is  embodied.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  enter  further  into  his  conception  of  the  state  as  a 
politi!"al  organization.     The  moral  life  is  the  life  of  the  good 


'8  The  Theory  of  the  State,  p.  321  {English  translation). 

'»  Hegel,  Werke,  VII,  §  550  (,  The  Philosophy  of  Mind,  Wallace's  Translation). 


ii- 


[284 


285] 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WTLL 


99 


citizen — a  life  which  is  made  up  of  civic  and  social  relations ; 
the  fulfilment  of  which  is  man's  highest  duty.  V 

Religion  is  the  basis  of  the  moral  life  and  of  the  state. 
For  Hegel  the  real  basis  of  social  life,  and  even  of  intelli- 
gence, is  religion,  liut,  as  Prof.  Wallace  says,  "  religion  is  a 
faith  and  a  theory  which  gives  unity  to  the  facts  of  life,  and 
gives  it,  not  because  the  unity  is  in  detail  proved  or  detected, 
but  because  life  and  experience  ine.'for^bly  demand  and 
evince  such  a  unity  to  the  heart.  Th'".  religion  of  a  time  is 
not  its  nominal  creed,  but  its  dominant  conviction  of  the 
meaning  of  reality,  the  principle  which  animates  all  its  being 
and  all  its  striving,  the  faith  it  has  in  the  laws  of  nature  and 
the  purpose  of  life."  "^ 

The  will  is  the  man.  His  ideal  is  self-realization  or  free- 
dom ;  and  self-realization  is  achieved  through  the  individual's 
making  the  life  of  the  world  his  own.  The  larger  and  fuller 
life  of  the  spirit  is  gradually  achieved  in  the  unity  of  the 
family,  of  the  civic  community  and  of  the  state.  In  some 
individuals  the  spiritual  life  is  expanded  even  to  identifica- 
tion with  the  life  of  humanity ;  and  this  is  all  possible  be- 
cause the  human  spirit  has  its  life  in  an  infinite  Spirit,  which 
has  been  the  immanent  life  of  all  human  activity.  To  con- 
clude with  Principal  Caird's  words :  "  Every  pulse-beat  of  its 
life  is  the  expression  and  realization  of  the  life  of  God." 


§  53.  In  the  preceding  chapters  we  have  endeavored  to 
give  an  outline  of  the  ethical  phase  of  Hegel's  system,  not 
with  the  intention  of  discovering  how  much  there  is  to  con- 
demn, but  how  much  we  inherit  from  it  that  is  true.  In 
conclusion,  a  few  words  by  way  of  summary  may  serve  to 
bring  together  some  of  the  main  conclusions  arrived  at  in 
the  essay,  which  must  be  incomplete  and,  to  that  extent  at 
least,  imperfect.     Philosophy  for  Hegel  is  an  interpretation 

'^  HegeVs  Philosophy  of  Mind :  Introduction,  p.  xxxvii. 


i     ■!,    '■ 


v-  \ 


u.\\\. 


I 


it! 


lOO 


HEGEDS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[286 


''I  I 


■'    i 


1 1 


^11  ^■■ 


1 1 


of  life,  of  human  experience.  We  speak  of  human  progress, 
and  we  seek  an  explanation.  For  this  explanation  are  we  to 
look  forward  or  backward?  Hegel  answers  that  every  ex- 
planation of  man  must  be  of  man  as  he  now  is.  To  trace 
every  phase  of  human  activity — society,  morality  and  re- 
ligion— back  to  its  lowly  beginnings,  Hegel  admits,  will 
throw  new  light  on  what,  at  present,  mati  is  and  does.  This 
is  true,  indeed,  of  man  above  all  other  beings — only  in  the 
light  of  his  history  can  he  be  adequately  known.  Man's  life 
implies  the  natural  and  spiritual  life  of  the  race.  Yet,  if  we 
are  to  speak  of  development  in  a  sense  other  than  that  of 
mere  aimless  change,  we  must  ndmit  that  what  has  been  de- 
vcloped  must  in  some  way  have  been  immanent  in,  indeed, 
the  informing  life  of  the  process.  "  What  Spirit  is,"  says 
Hegel  in  one  striking  passage,  "  it  has  always  been  essen- 
tially ;  distinctions  are  only  the  development  of  this  essen- 
tial nature.  The  life  of  the  ever-present  Spirit  is  a  circle  of 
progressive  embodiments,  which  looked  at  in  one  aspect 
still  exist  beside  each  other,  and  only  as  looked  at  from  an- 
other point  of  view  appears  as  past.  The  grades  which 
Spirit  seems  to  have  left  behind  it,  it  still  possesses  in  the 
depths  of  the  present." 

That  the  real  is  the  intelligible  and  the  intelligible  the 
real,  is  the  principle  on  which  is  based  the  idealism  begun 
by  Socrates,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  revived  by  Kant,  and 
which  received  its  most  adequate  expression  in  Hegel.  We 
endeavored  to  trace  in  outline  through  the  history  of  philos- 
ophy the  working  of  the  metaphysical  and  ethical  dualism 
which  lingered  in  the  systems  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  and 
gave  rise  to  such  abstractions  as  those  of  nature  and  spirit, 
necessity  and  freedom,  the  individual  and  society,  the  finite 
and  the  infinite.  Hcgel'was  the  first  cleeirly  to  perceive  how 
these  apparent  disparates  find  their  reconciliation  in  self-con- 
sciousness or  in  spirit.     Man's  fundamental  characteristic — 


ii 


[286 

rogrcss, 
re  we  to 
'cry  ex- 
fo  trace 
and   re- 
its,   will 
>.     This 
y  in  the 
an's  life 
et,  if  we 
that  of 
jeen  de- 
,  indeed, 
is,"  says 
n  essen- 
,s  esscn- 
circle  of 
e  aspect 
from  an- 
;s   which 
es  in  the 

Tible  the 
m  begun 
ant,  and 
^-el.  We 
if  philos- 

dualism 
iotle,  and 
nd  spirit, 
the  finite 
:eivc  how 

self-con- 
teristic — 


287] 


HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE   WILL 


lOI 


his  essence — for  Hegel  is  self-consciousness.  But  man  has 
no  life  alone.  He  is  an  intelligent  and  moral  consciousness 
only  as  he  goes  outside  of  himself  to  find  a  kindred  presence 
with  the  life  of  which  he  may  identify  himself.  The  finite 
consciousness,  in  knowledge  and  in  its  moral  activity  lives  in 
its  relationnhips.  Indeed,  there  is  but  one  self-conscious- 
ness which  is  the  soul  of  all  reality.  Self-consciousness  is 
God,  who  reveals  Himself  in  nature  and  in  the  luiman  spirit. 
All  that  is,  is  the  revelalion  of  spirit  to  itself.  In  the  third 
chapter  was  considered  in  what  sense  it  is  permissible  to 
speak  of  a  development  of  the  human  self-consciousness.  It 
was  held  that,  instead  of  consciousness  being  the  result  of  a 
phj'sical  process,  rather  the  reverse  was  true ;  or,  to  use 
Green's  words,  "  the  constituent  elements  of  an  organism 
can  only  be  truly  and  adequately  conceived  as  rendered 
what  they  are  by  the  end  reai.  ^d  through  the  organism." 
The  organism  is  instrumental,  /.  c,  organic  to  the  life  of 
self-conscious  intelligence.     Spirit  is  the  truth  of  nature. 

The  individual  is  at  first  appr.ienlly  immersed  in  nature. 
His  end  is  self-realization ;  to  become  a  free,  self-conscious 
spirit  is  "the  last  of  life  for  which  the  first  was  made."  He 
is  from  the  first  a  self-determining  being.  The  will  is  the 
activity  of  consciousness  as  self-reflecting  and  self-objectify- 
ing. The  life  process  is  the  realization  of  the  "  self"  through 
environment.  "  S[)irituality,"  says  Prof.  Royce,  "  lives  by 
self-differentiation  into  mutually  opposing  forces,  and  by 
victory  in  and  over  these  oppositions."  To  trace  this  real- 
ization of  the  "  self"  was  the  object  of  the  remaining  chap- 
ters. And  Hegel  teaches  that  self-realization  can  come  oidy 
through  self-renunciation.  Not  that  for  the  realization  of 
the  moral  life,  the  natural  life  is  to  be  renounced,  as  with 
Kant.  This  natural  life  is  rather  to  be  transformed,  spirit- 
ualized, and  made  the  worthy  setting  for  the  higher  life  of 
the  spirit.     To  be  human,  means  to  live  a  life  of  natural 


,'  \ 


M 


VJ 


I'    I 


I" 


ii 


w 


102 


IIEGEVS  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL 


[288 


wants,  sympathies,  and  desires.  Yet  on  these  natural 
"  appetites"  of  the  merely  individual  self,  there  supervenes 
man's  spiritual  endowment — his  essential  self — reason,  con- 
sciousness, the  immanent  life  of  whicii  is  that  universal 
reason  which  has  given  rise  to  and  still  vitalizes  and  informs 
the  spiritual  environment  in  which  the  iiulividual  is  to  be 
realized.  Self-consciuusness  is  universal  consciousness. 
"  Spirituality  is  the  community  of  spirits."  For  man  to 
seek  his  good — the  realization  of  himself — apart  from  the 
common  good  embodied  in  the  life  of  the  family,  of  the 
church  and  of  the  state,  is  to  lose  it.  The  individual  good 
is  the  social  good  ;  the  individual  life,  the  social  life.  And, 
to  conclude  this  essay  with  the  closing  words  of  Hegel's 
Philosophy  of  History,  "That  the  history  of  the  world,  with 
all  the  changing  ,  ccnes  which  its  annals  present,  is  this  pro- 
cess of  the  development  and  actualization  of  Spirit — this  is 
the  true  theodicy,  the  justification  of  God  in  history.  Only 
this  insight  can  reconcile  the  human  spirit  with  the  course 
of  universal  history — namely,  that  what  has  happened  and 
is  happening  each  day  is  not  only  not  without  God,  but  that 
it  is  essentially  His  work." 


u 


[288 


VITA 


y 


I,  John  An(;u.s  MacVannki.,  was  born  at  St.  Mary's, 
Ontario,  October  5,  1871.  I  attcndctl  the  St.  Mary's  Colle- 
giate Institute  for  four  years,  matriculating  into  the  Uni- 
versity of  Toronto,  July  1889.  In  the  University  of  Toronto 
I  received  honors  in  Classics,  luiglish  Literature  and  Philoso- 
phy. My  teachers  in  Philosophy  were  Prof.  Paldwin,  I'rof. 
Hume,  Dr.  Tracy  and  Dr.  Kirschmann,  I  received  the  B.  A. 
degree  in  1893,  and  the  M.  A.  degree  in  1894.  During 
1894-5,  'Js  Sage  Scholar  in  Ethics  in  the  Cornell  University, 
I  attended  the  lectures  of  Presi'lent  Schurnian,  Prof,  Creigh- 
ton.  Prof.  Titchener  and  Prof,  Corson  ;  and  during  1895-6,  as 
University  Fellow  in  Philosophy  in  Columbia  University,  I 
attended  the  courses  given  by  Prof.  Butler,  Prof.  Hyslop, 
Dr.  F"arrand,  and  Prof,  Giddings.  My  major  subject  was 
with  Prof.  Butler,  to  whose  guidance  and  continued  kindness 
I  owe  the  completion  of  this  dissertation. 

(  03 ) 


